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THE ROLLING EARTH 




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THE ROLLING EARTH 

OUTDOOR SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

FROM THE WRITINGS 

OF 

WALT WHITMAN 

la 

COMPILED BY 

WALDO R. BROWNE 

WITH AN 
INTRODUCTION BY JOHN BURROUGHS 



*' I swear I will never again mention 
love or death inside a house, 
And I sweat I will never translate 
myself at all, only to him or her 
who privately stays with me in 
the open air." 

Song of Myself. 



BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 

(Stye fttoergi&e tyxt$$ Cambriti0e 
1912 






COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



Publishtd March iqiz 






TO ALL WHO ARE 
" ENAMOUR' D OF GROWING OUT-DOORS 



After you have exhausted what there is in business, 
politics, conviviality, love, and so on — have found 
that none of these finally satisfy, or permanently wear 
— what remains? Nature remains; to bring out 
from their torpid recesses the affinities of a man or 
woman with the open air, the trees, fields, the changes 
of seasons — the sun by day and the stars of heaven by 
night. 

Who knows, {I have it in my fancy, my ambition,) 
but the pages now ensuing may carry ray of sun, or 
smell of grass or corn, or call of bird, or gleam of stars 
by night, or snow-fiakes falling fresh and mystic, to 
denizen of heated city house, or tired workman or 
workwoman ? — or may-be in sick-room or prison — 
to serve as cooling breeze, or Nature* s aroma, to some 
fever* d mouth or late?it pulse. 



PREFATORY NOTE 

Nearly midway in his "Specimen Days," 
at the close of the Civil War memoranda, 
Whitman has the following footnote : " With- 
out apology for the abrupt change of field 
and atmosphere — after what I have put 
in the preceding fifty or sixty pages — tem- 
porary episodes, thank heaven! — I restore 
my book to the bracing and buoyant equi- 
librium of concrete outdoor Nature, the 
only permanent reliance for sanity of book 
or human life." It is from the pages follow- 
ing this footnote that all the prose selections 
in the present volume are taken. "They 
run," says Whitman, "any time within 
nearly five or six years. Each was care- 
lessly pencilled in the open air, at the time 
and place." "My plan was originally for 
hints and data of a Nature-poem that 
ix 



PREFATORY NOTE 



should carry one's experiences a few hours, 
commencing at noon-flush, and so through 
the after-part of the day — I suppose led 
to such idea by my own life-af ternoon now 
arrived. But I soon found I could move at 
more ease, by giving the narrative at first 
hand. . . . Thus I went on, years follow- 
ing, various seasons and areas, spinning 
forth my thoughts . . , jotting all down 
in the loosest sort of chronological order, 
and here printing from my impromptu 
notes, hardly even the seasons group 'd to- 
gether, or anything corrected — so afraid 
of dropping what smack of outdoors or 
sun or starlight might cling to the lines, I 
dared not try to meddle with or smooth 
them." 

"Literature flies so high," he adds in 
another place, "and is so hotly spiced, that 
our notes may seem hardly more than 
breaths of common air, or draughts of 
water to drink. But that is part of our 
lesson." 



PREFATORY NOTE 



Acknowledgment is due to Mr. Horace 
Traubel, Whitman's literary executor, for 
courteous permission to include in these 
pages certain copyrighted matter from 
" Leaves of Grass." 



CONTENTS 

A Song of the Rolling Earth 3 

February Days 16 

Soon shall the Winter's Foil be here . . 20 

Spring Overtures — Recreations .... 22 

A Hint of Wild Nature 24 

The wild gander leads his flock through the 

cool night 26 

Extract from Song of Myself |$$ 

An Afternoon Scene 28 

Unseen Buds 30 

The Common Earth, the Soil 31 

Loafing in the Woods 32 

These I singing in Spring 34 

The Gates Opening 37 

The First Dandelion 39 

A Couple of Old Friends ....... 40 

O TO MAKE THE MOST JUBILANT SONG! ... 42 
Extract from A Song of Joys 

Turf-Fires — Spring Songs 45 

Warble for Lilac-Time 49 

Bumble-Bees 52 

Out of May's Shows Selected 58 

A Waterfall 59 

Song of the Open Road 61 

Birds migrating at Midnight ...... 85 

Summer SAjhts and Indolences 87 

Me ImperTurbe 89 

Thoughts under an Oak — A Dream ... 90 

The Lesson of a Tree . . 92 

••• 
Xlll 



CONTENTS 

The Voice of the Rain 96 

The Oaks and I 97 

A Quintette 100 

Kosmos IOI 

Bird-Whistling 103 

Thou Orb aloft full-dazzling 105 

A January Night 108 

When I heard the Learn'd Astronomer . .110 

Full-starr'd Nights in 

A Clear Midnight 114 

Hours for the Soul 115 

i open my scuttle at night and see the far- 
SPRINKLED systems 123 

Extract from Song of Myself 

Clover and Hay Perfume 125 

Miracles 127 

Three of Us 129 

A child sadj What is the grass ? fetching it to 

me with full hands . 132 

Extract from Song of Myself 
A July Afternoon by the Pond 136 

I THINK I COULD TURN AND LIVE WITH ANIMALS, 
THEY ARE SO PLACID AND SELF-CONTAIN'd . . . I39 
Extract from Song of Myself 

One of the Human Kinks 142 

Colors — A Contrast 143 

Give me the splendid silent sun with all his 

beams full-dazzling 144 

Extract from Drum-Taps 
Straw-color'd and Other Psyches . . ."*■'. 146 
With Husky-Haughty Lips, O Sea! . . . .150 

Sea-shore Fancies 152 

On the Beach at Night 155 

A Winter Day on the Sea-Beach . . . .158 
On the Beach at Night alone 161 



XIV 



CONTENTS 



Mulleins and Mulleins 163 

Oxen that rattle the yoke and chain . . & . 165 
Extract from Song of Myself 

To the Spring and Brook 167 

There is something that comes to one now and 

perpetually 169 

Extract from A Song for Occupations 
Mature Summer Days and Nights . . . .174 

The Commonplace 176 

Locusts and Katydids 177 

A Sun-Bath — Nakedness 180 

Supplement Hours 186 

Wild Flowers 187 

Entering a Long Farm-Lane 189 

Halcyon Days 190 

Distant Sounds 191 

Autumn Side-Bits 193 

For the lands and for these passionate days 

and for myself 196 

Extract from The Return of the Heroes 
The Sky — Days and Nights — Happiness . 198 

To the Sun-set Breeze 202 

Sundown Lights 204 

Sundown Perfume — Quail-Notes — The Her- 
mit-Thrush 206 

Song at Sunset 208 

I am he that walks with the tender and grow- 
ing night 213 

Extract from Song of Myself 

A Night Remembrance 215 

Night on the Prairies 217 

Night — and Carlyle dying 219 

Twilight 222 



INTRODUCTION 

The editor of this volume of selections from 
the prose and poetry of Walt Whitman is 
peculiarly happy in his choice of a title. 
To my mind, Whitman was the poet of the 
Earth considered as an orb in the heavens, 
in a fuller sense than any other poet has 
been. The idea of the "Rolling Earth" 
forms a sort of background to much that 
he wrote. His thoughts dwelt with the 
spheres, — not as the scientist thinks of 
them, but as the poet and prophet think of 
them. I believe it was a personal conviction 
with' him that in the future life he would be 
"eligible," as he said, to visit the spheres. 
I remember that often in our walks by star- 
light he would suddenly stop and gaze long 
and intently at the sky, and then pass on 
without a word. 
As a poet he did not specialize upon 
xvii 



INTRODUCTION 



flowers or birds or scenery, or any of the 
mere prettinesses of nature, but he thought 
of wholes, he tried himself by wholes, he 
emulated the insouciance, the impartial- 
ity, the mass movements of the earth. "I 
reckon I behave no prouder," he says, 
"than the level I plant my house by." The 
great common, universal facts thrilled him, 
inspired him, and he tried his own work by 
them. " Tallying " was a favorite word with 
him, and he would fain have his free flow- 
ing lines tally "earth's soil, trees, winds, 
tumultuous waves." Over and over he 
turns his gaze upon the sky and upon the 
midnight constellations, and seeks to draw 
courage and composure from them. His 
panoramic style comes largely from his 
habit of contemplating the earth as a 
whole, "swift swimming in space." He 
sees processions and mass movements, 
continents and oceans, races and peoples 
flowing by him. 
I doubt if any other poet's imagination 
xviii 



INTRODUCTION 



so revelled in thoughts of the whole scheme 
of things. Tennyson strikes the note at 
times in "In Memoriam," and in one or 
two other poems, but not in the same large 
prophetic way. Tennyson's imagination 
was kindled more by the deductions of 
science; Whitman's emotions, while in 
strict accord with science, were more prim- 
itive and personal, and more akin to those 
of Biblical writers. What I mean to say is 
that Tennyson's interest in the results of 
modern science was more purely intellectual 
than was Whitman's. He was more dis- 
posed to use them to point a moral or adorn 
a tale than was Whitman. Whitman did 
not feel overshadowed by science as Tenny- 
son at times did. His egoism was greater 
than that of Tennyson, and he subordinated 
the results of science to his own spiritual 
ends. To the men of science he said: — 

" Gentlemen, to you the first honors always ! 
Your facts are useful, and yet they are not my dwelling, 
I but enter by them to an area of my dwelling." 

xix 



INTRODUCTION 



His attitude toward science is well seen in 
this passage: — 

"I lie abstracted and hear beautiful tales of things and 

the reasons of things, 
They are so beautiful I nudge myself to listen. 
I cannot say to any person what I hear — I cannot 

say it to myself — it is very wonderful." 

He thus gazed upon science complacently, 
and not with perturbations as Tennyson 
did at times. His muse was not abashed or 
disturbed in its presence; rather was it de- 
lighted and stimulated. He felt perfectly 
secure in his own interpretation of the 
cosmos: — 

"Lo! keen-eyed towering science, 
As from tall peaks the modern overlooking, 
Successive absolute fiats issuing. 

Yet again, lo! the soul, above all science, 

For it has history gather'd like husks around the globe, 

For it the entire star-myriads roll through the sky." 

"Earth's orbic scheme" is one of Whit- 
man's phrases, — 

"What is the part the wicked and the loathsome bear 
within earth's orbic scheme ? " 

XX 



INTRODUCTION 



"The round, impassive globe with all its 

shows of day and night/' is another line. 

"The apple-shaped earth, and we upon it," 

again comes to his mind. 

"It is no small matter, this round and delicious globe 
moving so exactly in its orbit for ever and ever, 
without one jolt or the untruth of a single second, 

I do not think it was made in six days, nor in ten thou- 
sand years, nor ten billions of years, 

Nor plann'd and built one thing after another as an 
architect plans and builds a house." 

In his "Song of Myself," Whitman 

addresses himself to the earth with real 

lyrical passion: — 

"Smile O voluptuous cool-breath'd earth! 
Earth of the slumbering and liquid trees! 
Earth of departed sunset — earth of the mountains 

misty-topt! 
Earth of the vitreous pour of the full moon just tinged 

with blue! 
Earth of shine and dark mottling the tide of the river! 
Earth of the limpid gray of clouds brighter and clearer 

for my sake ! 
Far-swooping elbow'd earth — rich apple-blossom'd 

earth! 
Smile, for your lover comes." 

It was Professor Clifford, I believe, who 
xxi 



INTRODUCTION 



first named this passion of Whitman "cos- 
mic emotion/ ' Whitman's mood and tem- 
per are so habitually begotten by the con- 
templation of the orbs, and of the laws 
and processes of universal nature, that the 
phrase often comes to my mind in consider- 
ing him. 

Any large view of life, any broad survey 
of nature and mankind, is a good prepara- 
tion for the understanding of Whitman. 
He demands the outdoor temper and habit, 
he demands a sense of space and power, 
and, above all things, a feeling for reality. 
He tries his verse by the standards of con- 
crete nature: — 

"I will confront these shows of the day and night, 
I will know if I am to be less than they." 

"Logic and sermons never convince," he 
says. "The damp of the night drives deeper 
into my soul." " My gait is no fault-finder's 
or rejecter's gait, I moisten the roots of all 
that has grown"; and his direct, broadcast 
ways, and fluid, copious, informal lines do 
xxii 



INTRODUCTION 



suggest the benefaction that nourishes the 
roots of all growing things. 

But Whitman is not to be summed up 
in one phrase or trait; he loved nature in 
detail, he loved bird, flower, tree, insect, 
quadruped, and all characteristic rural 
scenes and incidents, as this collection 
shows. Some of the prose nature jottings 
which have been selected for this volume 
were made while he was visiting me at my 
home at West Park, on the Hudson. He 
never seemed to tire of country sights and 
sounds, or of country folk, or of hearing me 
relate experiences with bees and birds and 
other wild creatures. He always wanted 
these things in their natural setting, and in 
their relation to the rest of nature. He had 
not the Wordsworthian faculty or disposi- 
tion of moralizing over simple rural inci- 
dents, nor yet of reaching the lyric note in 
his treatment of bird or flower or scene. 
The movement of his mind was epic. Yet 
how felicitous and telling some of his epi- 
xxiii 



INTRODUCTION 



thets and descriptive lines, — the apple in 
autumn hanging " indolent-ripe on the 
tree," "the stretching light-hung roof of 
clouds," "the high dilating stars," "the 
white arms out in the breakers tirelessly 
tossing," and "the huge and thoughtful 
night." See what fellowship he has with the 
night: — 

"I am he that walks with the tender and growing night, 
I call to the earth and sea half-held by the night. 
Press close bare-bosom'd night — press close mag- 
netic nourishing night! " 

A whole sheaf of such lines and phrases 
descriptive of things in nature might be 
gathered from Whitman's pages. But I 
will desist. 

This selection ought to meet a ready 
acceptance at the hands of the reading 
public, and to foster a love for Whitman 
and his writings in the minds and hearts 
of many who now know him not. 

John Burroughs. 

Roxbury, New York, 
September, 191 1. 



THE ROLLING EARTH 



Away then to loosen, to unstring the divine bow, so 
tense, so long. Away, from curtain, carpet, sofa, 
book — from " society" — from city house, street, 
and modern improvements and luxuries — away to the 
primitive winding, wooded creek, with its untrimm' 'd 
bushes and turfy banks — away from ligatures, tight 
boots, buttons, and the whole cast-iron civilized life — 
from entourage of artificial store, machine, studio, 
office, parlor — from tailor dom and fashion's clothes 
— from any clothes, perhaps, for the nonce, the summer 
heats advancing, there in those watery, shaded soli- 
tudes. Away, thou soul, {let me pick thee out singly, 
reader dear, and talk in perfect freedom, negligently, 
confidentially ,) for one day and night at least, return- 
ing to the naked source-life of us all — to the breast 
of the great silent savage all-acceptive Mother, Alas ! 
how many of us are so sodden — how many have wan- 
dered so far away, that return is almost impossible. 



A SONG OF THE ROLLING EARTH 



A song of the rolling earth, and of words 
according, 

Were you thinking that those were the 
words, those upright lines? those 
curves, angles, dots ? 

No, those are not the words, the sub- 
stantial words are in the ground and 
sea, 

They are in the air, they are in you. 

Were you thinking that those were the 
words, those delicious sounds out of 
your friends' mouths ? 

No, the real words are more delicious than 
they. 

Human bodies are words, myriads of words, 
(In the best poems re-appears the body, 

3 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

man's or woman's, well-shaped, nat- 
ural, gay, 
Every part able, active, receptive, without 
shame or the need of shame.) 

Air, soil, water, fire — those are words, 
I myself am a word with them — my qual- 
ities interpenetrate with theirs — 
my name is nothing to them, 
Though it were told in the three thousand 
languages, what would air, soil, 
water, fire, know of my name ? 

A healthy presence, a friendly or command- 
ing gesture, are words, sayings, 
meanings, 

The charms that go with the mere looks of 
some men and women, are sayings 
and meanings also. 

The workmanship of souls is by those in- 
audible words of the earth, 

The masters know the earth's words and 
use them more than audible words. 
4 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

Amelioration is one of the earth's words, 

The earth neither lags nor hastens, 

It has all attributes, growths, effects, latent 

in itself from the jump, 
It is not half beautiful only, defects and 

excrescences show just as much as 

perfections show. 

The earth does not withhold, it is generous 

enough, 
The truths of the earth continually wait, 

they are not so conceal'd either, 
They are calm, subtle, untransmissible by 

print, 
They are imbued through all things convey- 
ing themselves willingly, 
Conveying a sentiment and invitation, I 

utter and utter,. 
I speak not, yet if you hear me not of what 

avail am I to you ? 
To bear, to better, lacking these of what 

avail am I ? 



5 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

The earth does not argue, 

Is not pathetic, has no arrangements, 

Does not scream, haste, persuade, threaten, 
promise, 

Makes no discriminations, has no conceiv- 
able failures, 

Closes nothing, refuses nothing, shuts none 
out, 

Of all the powers, objects, states, it notifies, 
shuts none out. 

The earth does not exhibit itself nor refuse 
to exhibit itself, possesses still under- 
neath, 

Underneath the ostensible sounds, the 
august chorus of heroes, the wail of 
slaves, 

Persuasions of lovers, curses, gasps of the 
dying, laughter of young people, 
accents of bargainers, 

Underneath these possessing words that 
never fail. 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

To her children the words of the eloquent 

dumb great mother never fail, 
The true words do not fail, for motion 

does not fail and reflection does 

not fail, 
Also the day and night do not fail, and 

the voyage we pursue does not 

fail. 

Of the interminable sisters, 

Of the ceaseless cotillons of sisters, 

Of the centripetal and centrifugal sisters, 

the elder and younger sisters, 
The beautiful sister we know dances on 

with the rest. 

With her ample back towards every 

beholder, 
With the fascinations of youth and the 

equal fascinations of age, 
Sits she whom I too love like the rest, sits 

undisturbed, 
Holding up in her hand what has the char- 
7 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

acter of a mirror, while her eyes 

glance back from it, 
Glance as she sits, inviting none, denying 

none, 
Holding a mirror day and night tirelessly 

before her own face. 

Seen at hand or seen at a distance, 

Duly the twenty-four appear in public 

every day, 
Duly approach and pass with their com- 
panions or a companion, 
Looking from no countenances of their own, 

but from the countenances of those 

who are with them, 
From the countenances of children or 

women or the manly countenance, 
From the open countenances of animals or 

from inanimate things, 
From the landscape or waters or from the 

exquisite apparition of the sky, 
From our countenances, mine and yours, 

faithfully returning them, 
8 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

Every day in public appearing without fail, 
but never twice with the same com- 
panions. 

Embracing man, embracing all, proceed 
the three hundred and sixty-five 
resistlessly round the sun; 

Embracing all, soothing, supporting, follow 
close three hundred and sixty-five 
offsets of the first, sure and necessary 
as they. 

Tumbling on steadily, nothing dreading, 

Sunshine, storm, cold, heat, forever with- 
standing, passing, carrying, 

The soul's realization and determination 
still inheriting, 

The fluid vacuum around and ahead still 
entering and dividing, 

No balk retarding, no anchor anchoring, 
on no rock striking, 

Swift, glad, content, unbereav'd, nothing 
losing, 

9 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

Of all able and ready at any time to give 

strict account, 
The divine ship sails the divine sea. 



Whoever you are ! motion and reflection are 

especially for you, 
The divine ship sails the divine sea for you. 

Whoever you are! you are he or she for 
whom the earth is solid and liquid, 

You are he or she for whom the sun and 
moon hang in the sky, 

For none more than you are the present and 
the past, 

For none more than you is immortality. 

Each man to himself and each woman to 
herself, is the word of the past and 
present, and the true word of im- 
mortality; 
No one can acquire for another — not one, 
Not one can grow for another — not one. 
10 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

The song is to the singer, and comes back 

most to him, 
The teaching is to the teacher, and comes 

back most to him, 
The murder is to the murderer, and comes 

back most to him, 
The theft is to the thief, and comes back 

most to him, 
The love is to the lover, and comes back 

most to him, 
The gift is to the giver, and comes back 

most to him — it cannot fail, 
The oration is to the orator, the acting is 

to the actor and actress not to the 

audience, 
And no man understands any greatness or 

goodness but his own, or the indi- 
cation of his own. 

3 

I swear the earth shall surely be complete to 

him or her who shall be complete, 
The earth remains jagged and broken only 
ii 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

to him or her who remains jagged 
and broken. 

I swear there is no greatness or power that 
does not emulate those of the earth, 

There can be no theory of any account un- 
less it corroborate the theory of the 
earth, 

No politics, song, religion, behavior, or 
what not, is of account, unless it 
compare with the amplitude of the 
earth, 

Unless it face the exactness, vitality, im- 
partiality, rectitude of the earth. 

I swear I begin to see love with sweeter 
spasms than that which responds 
love, 

It is that which contains itself, which never 
invites and never refuses. 

I swear I begin to see little or nothing in 
audible words, 

12 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

All merges toward the presentation of the 
unspoken meanings of the earth, 

Toward him who sings the songs of the body 
and of the truths of the earth, 

Toward him who makes the dictionaries of 
words that print cannot touch. 

I swear I see what is better than to tell the 

best, 
It is always to leave the best untold. 

When I undertake to tell the best I find I 
cannot, 

My tongue is ineffectual on its pivots, 

My breath will not be obedient to its 
organs, 

I become a dumb man. 

The best of the earth cannot be told any- 
how, all or any is best, 

It is not what you anticipated, it is cheaper, 
easier, nearer, 

Things are not dismiss'd from the places 
they held before, 
13 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

The earth is just as positive and direct as it 

was before, 
Facts, religions, improvements, politics, 

trades, are as real as before, 
But the soul is also real, it too is positive 

and direct, 
No reasoning, no proof has establish'd it, 
Undeniable growth has establish'd it. 

4 
These to echo the tones of souls and the 

phrases of souls, 
(If they did not echo the phrases of souls 

what were they then? 
If they had not reference to you in especial 

what were they then?) 

I swear I will never henceforth have to do 
with the faith that tells the best, 

I will have to do only with that faith that 
leaves the best untold. 

Say on, sayers! sing on, singers! 
Delve! mould! pile the words of the earth. 
14 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

Work on, age after age, nothing is to be lost, 
It may have to wait long, but it will cer- 
tainly come in use, 
When the materials are all prepared and 
ready, the architects shall appear. 

I swear to you the architects shall appear 

without fail, 
I swear to you they will understand you and 

justify you, 
The greatest among them shall be he who 

best knows you, and encloses all and 

is faithful to all, 
He and the rest shall not forget you, they 

shall perceive that you are not an 

iota less than they, 
You shall be fully glorified in them. 



FEBRUARY DAYS 

February 7, 1878. — Glistening sun to-day, 
with slight haze, warm enough, and yet 
tart, as I sit here in the open air, down in 
my country retreat, under an old cedar. 
For two hours I have been idly wandering 
around the woods and pond, lugging my 
chair, picking out choice spots to sit awhile 
— then up and slowly on again. All is 
peace here. Of course, none of the summer 
noises or vitality; to-day hardly even the 
winter ones. I amuse myself by exercising 
my voice in recitations, and in ringing the 
changes on all the vocal and alphabetical 
sounds. Not even an echo; only the cawing 
of a solitary crow, flying at some distance. 
The pond is one bright, flat spread, without 
a ripple — a vast Claude Lorraine glass, in 
which I study the sky, the light, the leafless 
trees, and an occasional crow, with flapping 
16 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

wings, flying overhead. The brown fields 
have a few white patches of snow left. 

February g. — After an hour's ramble, 
now retreating, resting, sitting close by the 
pond, in a warm nook, writing this, shel- 
ter'd from the breeze, just before noon. The 
emotional aspects and influences of Nature! 
I, too, like the rest, feel these modern ten- 
dencies (from all the prevailing intellec- 
tions, literature and poems,) to turn every- 
thing to pathos, ennui, morbidity, dissatis- 
faction, death. Yet how clear it is to me that 
those are not the born results, influences of 
Nature at all, but of one's own distorted, 
sick or silly soul. Here, amid this wild, 
free scene, how healthy, how joyous, how 
clean and vigorous and sweet! 

Mid-afternoon. — One of my nooks is 
south of the barn, and here I am sitting 
now, on a log, still basking in the sun, 
shielded from the wind. Near me are the 
cattle, feeding on corn-stalks. Occasionally 
a cow or the young bull (how handsome 
17 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

and bold he is!) scratches and munches the 
far end of the log on which I sit. The fresh 
milky odor is quite perceptible, also the 
perfume of hay from the barn. The per- 
petual rustle of dry corn-stalks, the low 
sough of the wind round the barn gables, 
the grunting of pigs, the distant whistle 
of a locomotive, and occasional crowing of 
chanticleers, are the sounds. 

February ig. — Cold and sharp last night 
— clear and not much wind — the full moon 
shining, and a fine spread of constellations 
and little and big stars — Sirius very bright, 
rising early, preceded by many-orb 'd Orion, 
glittering, vast, sworded, and chasing with 
his dog. The earth hard frozen, and a stiff 
glare of ice over the pond. Attracted by the 
calm splendor of the night, I attempted a 
short walk, but was driven back by the 
cold. Too severe for me also at 9 o'clock, 
when I came out this morning, so I turn'd 
back again. But now, near noon, I have 
walk'd down the lane, basking all the way 
18 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

in the sun (this farm has a pleasant south- 
erly exposure,) and here I am, seated under 
the lee of a bank, close by the water. There 
are bluebirds already flying about, and I 
hear much chirping and twittering and two 
or three real songs, sustained quite awhile, 
in the mid-day brilliance and warmth. 
(There! that is a true carol, coming out 
boldly and repeatedly, as if the singer 
meant it.) Then as the noon strengthens, 
the reedy trill of the robin — to my ear the 
most cheering of bird-notes. At intervals, 
like bars and breaks (out of the low mur- 
mur that in any scene, however quiet, is 
never entirely absent to a delicate ear,) the 
occasional crunch and cracking of the ice- 
glare congeaPd over the creek, as it gives 
way to the sunbeams — sometimes with 
low sigh — sometimes with indignant, ob- 
stinate tug and snort. 



SOON SHALL THE WINTER'S FOIL BE 
HERE_ 

Soon shall the winter's foil be here; 

Soon shall these icy ligatures unbind and 
melt — A little while, 

And air, soil, wave, suffused shall be in 
softness, bloom and growth — a 
thousand forms shall rise 

From these dead clods and chills as from 
low burial graves. 

Thine eyes, ears — all thy best attributes 
— all that takes cognizance of natu- 
ral beauty, 

Shall wake and fill. Thou shalt perceive the 
simple shows, the delicate miracles 
of earth, 

Dandelions, clover, the emerald grass, the 
early scents and flowers, 

The arbutus under; foot, the willow's yel- 
low-green, the blossoming plum and 
cherry; 

20 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

With these the robin, lark and thrush, sing- 
ing their songs — the flitting blue- 
bird; 

For such the scenes the annual play brings 
on. 



SPRING OVERTURES — RECREATIONS 

February 10. — The first chirping, almost 
singing, of a bird to-day. Then I noticed a 
couple of honey-bees spirting and humming 
about the open window in the sun. 

February n. — In the soft rose and pale 
gold of the declining light, this beautiful 
evening, I heard the first hum and prepara- 
tion of awakening spring — very faint — 
whether in the earth or roots, or starting 
of insects, I know not — but it was audible, 
as I lean'd on a rail (I am down in my 
country quarters awhile,) and look'd long 
at the western horizon. Turning to the 
east, Sirius, as the shadows deepened, came 
forth in dazzling splendor. And great 
Orion; and a little to the north-east the big 
Dipper, standing on end. 

February 20. — A solitary and pleasant 
sundown hour at the pond, exercising arms, 
22 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

chest, my whole body, by a tough oak 
sapling thick as my wrist, twelve feet high 
— pulling and pushing, inspiring the good 
air. After I wrestle with the tree awhile, I 
can feel its young sap and virtue welling 
up out of the ground and tingling through 
me from crown to toe, like health's wine. 
Then -for addition and variety I launch 
forth in my vocalism; shout declamatory 
pieces, sentiments, sorrow, anger, &c, from 
the stock poets or plays — or inflate my 
lungs and sing the wild tunes and refrains 
I heard of the blacks down south, or patri- 
otic songs I learn'd in the army. I make the 
echoes ring, I tell you! As the twilight fell, 
in a pause of these ebullitions, an owl some- 
where the other side of the creek sounded 
too-oo-oo-oo-oo, soft and pensive (and I 
fancied a little sarcastic) repeated four or 
five times. Either to applaud the negro 
songs — or perhaps an ironical comment 
on the sorrow, anger, or style of the stock 
poets. 



A HINT OF WILD NATURE 

February 13. — As I was crossing the Dela- 
ware to-day, saw a large flock of wild 
geese, right overhead, not very high up, 
ranged in V-shape, in relief against the noon 
clouds of light smoke-color. Had a capital 
though momentary view of them, and then 
of their course on and on southeast, till 
gradually fading — (my eyesight yet first 
rate for the open air and its distances, but 
I use glasses for reading). Queer thoughts 
melted into me the two or three minutes, 
or less, seeing these creatures cleaving the 
sky — the spacious, airy realm — even the 
prevailing smoke-gray color everywhere 
(no sun shining) — the waters below — 
the rapid flight of the birds, appearing 
just for a minute — flashing to me such a 
hint of the whole spread of Nature, with 
24 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

her eternal unsophisticated freshness, her 
never- visited recesses of sea, sky, shore — 
and then disappearing in the distance. 



The wild gander leads his flock through 

the cool night, 
Ya-honk he says, and sounds it down to 

me like an invitation, 
The pert may suppose it meaningless, but 

I listening close 
Find its purpose and place up there toward 

the wintry sky. 

The sharp-hoof'd moose of the north, the 

cat on the house-sill, the chickadee, 

the prairie-dog, 
The litter of the grunting sow as they tug 

at her teats, 
The brood of the turkey-hen and she with 

her half-spread wings, 
I see in them and myself the same old law. 

The press of my foot to the earth springs a 

hundred affections, 
They scorn the best I can do to relate them. 
26 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

I am enamour'd of growing out-doors, 

Of men that live among cattle or taste of 

the ocean or woods, 
Of the builders and steerers of ships and the 

wielders of axes and mauls, and the 

drivers of horses, 
I can eat and sleep with them week in and 

week out. 

What is commonest, cheapest, nearest, 

easiest, is Me, 
Me going in for my chances, spending for 

vast returns, 
Adorning myself to bestow myself on the 

first that will take me, 
Not asking the sky to come down to my 

good will. 
Scattering it freely forever. 

Song of Myself. 



AN AFTERNOON SCENE 

February 22. — Last night and to-day rainy 
and thick, till mid-afternoon, when the 
wind chopp'd round, the clouds swiftly 
drew off like curtains, the clear appear'd, 
and with it the fairest, grandest, most won- 
drous rainbow I ever saw, all complete, 
very vivid at its earth-ends, spreading vast 
effusions of illuminated haze, violet, yel- 
low, drab-green, in all directions overhead, 
through which the sun beam'd — an inde- 
scribable utterance of color and light, so 
gorgeous yet so soft, such as I had never wit- 
ness'd before. Then its continuance: a full 
hour pass'd before the last of those earth- 
ends disappear'd. The sky behind was 
all spread in translucent blue, with many 
little white clouds and edges. To these a 
sunset, filling, dominating the esthetic and 
soul senses, sumptuously, tenderly, full. I 
28 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

end this note by the pond, just light enough 
to see, through the evening shadows, the 
western reflections in its water-mirror sur- 
face, with inverted figures of trees. I hear 
now and then the flup of a pike leaping out, 
and rippling the water. 



UNSEEN BUDS 

Unseen buds, infinite, hidden well, 

Under the snow and ice, under the darkness, 
in every square or cubic inch, 

Germinal, exquisite, in delicate lace, micro- 
scopic, unborn, 

Like babes in wombs, latent, folded, com- 
pact, sleeping; 

Billions of billions, and trillions of trillions' 
of them waiting, 

(On earth and in the sea — the universe — 
the stars there in the heavens,) 

Urging slowly, surely forward, forming 
endless, 

And waiting ever more, forever more 
behind. 



30 



THE COMMON EARTH, THE SOIL 

The soil, too — let others pen-and-ink the 
sea, the air, (as I sometimes try) — but 
now I feel to choose the common soil for 
theme — naught else. The brown soil here, 
(just between winter-close and opening 
spring and vegetation) — the rain-shower 
at night, and the fresh smell next morn- 
ing — the red worms wriggling out of the 
ground — the dead leaves, the incipient 
grass, and the latent life underneath — the 
effort to start something — already in shel- 
ter'd spots some little flowers — the dis- 
tant emerald show of winter wheat and the 
rye-fields — the yet naked trees, with clear 
interstices, giving prospects hidden in sum- 
mer — the tough fallow and the plow- 
team, and the stout boy whistling to his 
horses for encouragement — and there the 
dark fat earth in long slanting stripes 
upturn'd. 

3i 



LOAFING IN THE WOODS 

March 8. — I write this down in the coun try- 
again, but in a new spot, seated on a log 
in the woods, warm, sunny, midday. Have 
been loafing here deep among the trees, 
shafts of tall pines, oak, hickory, with a 
thick undergrowth of laurels and grape- 
vines — the ground cover'd everywhere 
by debris, dead leaves, breakage, moss — 
everything solitary, ancient, grim. Paths 
(such as they are) leading hither and yon — 
(how made I know not, for nobody seems 
to come here, nor man nor cattle-kind). 
Temperature to-day about 60, the wind 
through the pine-tops; I sit and listen to 
its hoarse sighing above (and to the still- 
ness) long and long, varied by aimless 
rambles in the old roads and paths, and 
by exercise-pulls at the young saplings, to 
keep my joints from getting stiff. Blue- 
32 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

birds, robins, meadow-larks begin to ap- 
pear. 

Next day ', gth. — A snowstorm in the 
morning, and continuing most of the day. 
But I took a walk over two hours, the same 
woods and paths, amid the falling flakes. 
No wind, yet the musical low murmur 
through the pines, quite pronounced, curi- 
ous, like waterfalls, now still'd, now pour- 
ing again. All the senses, sight, sound, 
smell, delicately gratified. Every snowflake 
lay where it fell on the evergreens, holly- 
trees, laurels, &c, the multitudinous leaves 
and branches piled, bulging-white, defined 
by edge-lines of emerald — the tall straight 
columns of the plentiful bronze-topt pines 
— a slight resinous odor blending with that 
of the snow. (For there is a scent to every- 
thing, even the snow, if you can only detect 
it — no two places, hardly any two hours, 
anywhere, exactly alike. How different the 
odor of noon from midnight, or winter from 
summer, or a windy spell from a still one.) 
33 



THESE I SINGING IN SPRING 

These I singing in spring collect for lovers, 

(For who but I should understand lovers 
and all their sorrow and joy? 

And who but I should be the poet of com- 
rades ?) 

Collecting I traverse the garden the world, 
but soon I pass the gates, 

Now along the pond-side, now wading in a 
little, fearing not the wet, 

Now by the post-and-rail fences where the 
old stones thrown there, pick'd from 
the fields, have accumulated, 

(Wild-flowers and vines and weeds come up 
through the stones and partly cover 
them, beyond these I pass,) 

Far, far in the forest, or sauntering later in 
summer, before I think where I go, 

Solitary, smelling the earthy smell, stop- 
ping now and then in the silence, 
34 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

Alone I had thought, yet soon a troop 

gathers around me, 
Some walk by my side and some behind, 

and some embrace my arms or 

neck, 
They the spirits of dear friends dead or 

alive, thicker they come, a great 

crowd, and I in the middle, 
Collecting, dispensing, singing, there I 

wander with them, 
Plucking something for tokens, tossing 

toward whoever is near me, 
Here, lilac, with a branch of pine, 
Here, out of my pocket, some moss which 

I pulFd off a live-oak in Florida as 

it hung trailing down, 
Here, some pinks and laurel leaves, and a 

handful of sage, 
And here what I now draw from the water, 

wading in the pond-side, 
(0 here I last saw him that tenderly loves 

me, and returns again never to sep- 
arate from me, 
35 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

And this, this shall henceforth be the 

token of comrades, this calamus-root 

shall, 
Interchange it youths with each other! let 

none render it back !) 
And twigs of maple and a bunch of wild 

orange and chestnut, 
And stems of currants and plum-blows, and 

the aromatic cedar, 
These I compass'd around by a thick cloud 

of spirits, 
Wandering, point to or touch as I pass, or 

throw them loosely from me, 
Indicating to each one what he shall have, 

giving something to each; 
But what I drew from the water by the 

pond-side, that I reserve, 
I will give of it, but only to them that love 

as I myself am capable of loving. 



THE GATES OPENING 

April 6. — Palpable spring indeed, or the 
indications of it. I am sitting in bright sun- 
shine, at the edge of the creek, the surface 
just rippled by the wind. All is solitude, 
morning freshness, negligence. For com- 
panions my two kingfishers sailing, wind- 
ing, darting, dipping, sometimes capri- 
ciously separate, then flying together. I 
hear their guttural twitterings again and 
again; for a while nothing but that peculiar 
sound. As noon approaches other birds 
warm up. The reedy notes of the robin, and 
a musical passage of two parts, one a clear 
delicious gurgle, with several other birds 
I cannot place. To which is join'd, (yes, 
I just hear it,) one low purr at intervals 
from some impatient hylas at the pond- 
edge. The sibilant murmur of a pretty stiff 
breeze now and then through the trees. 
37 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

Then a poor little dead leaf, long frost- 
bound, whirls from somewhere up aloft in 
one wild escaped freedom-spree in space 
and sunlight, and then dashes down to 
the waters, which hold it closely and soon 
drown it out of sight. The bushes and trees 
are yet bare, but the beeches have their 
wrinkled yellow leaves of last season's foli- 
age largely left, frequent cedars and pines 
yet green, and the grass not without proofs 
of coming fullness. And over all a wonder- 
fully fine dome, of clear blue, the play of 
light coming and going, and great fleeces 
of white clouds swimming so silently. 



THE FIRST DANDELION 

Simple and fresh and fair from winter's 
close emerging, 

As if no artifice of fashion, business, politics, 
had ever been, 

Forth from its sunny nook of shelter'd 
grass — innocent, golden, calm as 
the dawn, 

The spring's first dandelion shows its trust- 
ful face. 



39 



A COUPLE OF OLD FRIENDS 

Latter April. — Have run down in my coun- 
try haunt for a couple of days, and am 
spending them by the pond. I had already 
discover'd my kingfisher here (but only 
one — the mate not here yet). This fine 
bright morning, down by the creek, he has 
come out for a spree, circling, flirting, chirp- 
ing at a round rate. While I am writing 
these lines he'is disporting himself in scoots 
and rings over the wider parts of the pond, 
into whose surface he dashes, once or twice 
making a loud souse — the spray flying 
in the sun — beautiful! I see his white 
and dark-gray plumage and peculiar shape 
plainly, as he has deign'd to come very 
near me. The noble, graceful bird! Now he 
is sitting on the limb of an old tree, high 
up, bending over the water — seems to be 
40 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

looking at me while I memorandize. I 
almost fancy he knows me. 

Three days later. — My second kingfisher 
is here with his (or her) mate. I saw the 
two together flying and whirling around. 
I had heard, in the distance, what I thought 
was the clear rasping staccato of the birds 
several times already — but I could n't be 
sure the notes came from both until I saw 
them together. To-day at noon they ap- 
pear'd, but apparently either on business, 
or for a little limited exercise only. No wild 
frolic now, full of free fun and motion, up 
and down for an hour. Doubtless, now they 
have cares, duties, incubation responsibil- 
ities. The frolics are deferr'd till summer- 
close. 



O to make the most jubilant song! 

Full of music — full of manhood, woman- 
hood, infancy! 

Full of common employments — full of 
grain and trees. 

O for the voices of animals — O for the 
swiftness and balance of fishes! 

O for the dropping of raindrops in a song! 

O for the sunshine and motion of waves in 
a song! 

the joy of my spirit — it is uncaged — it 

darts like lightning! 
It is not enough to have this globe or a 
certain time, 

1 will have thousands of globes and all time. 

O the gleesome saunter over fields and 

hillsides ! 
The leaves and flowers of the commonest 
42 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

weeds, the moist fresh stillness of the 
woods, 
The exquisite smell of the earth at day- 
break, and all through the forenoon. 

(O something pernicious and dread ! 
Something far away from a puny and pious 

life! 
Something unproved ! something in a trance ! 
Something escaped from the anchorage and 

driving free.) 

< 
O to realize space! 
The plenteousness of all, that there are no 

bounds, 
To emerge and be of the sky, of the sun and 

moon and flying clouds, as one with 

them. 

O the joy of a manly self -hood ! 
To be servile to none, to defer to none, not 
to any tyrant known or unknown, 
43 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

To walk with erect carriage, a step springy 

and elastic, 
To look with calm gaze or with a flashing 

eye, 
To speak with a full and sonorous voice out 

of a broad chest, 
To confront with your personality all the 

other personalities of the earth. 

O while I live to be the ruler of life, not a 
slave, 

To meet life as a powerful conqueror, 

No fumes, no ennui, no more complaints 
or scornful criticisms, 

To these proud laws of the air, the water 
and the ground, proving my interior 
soul impregnable, 

And nothing exterior shall ever take com- 
mand of me. 

A Song of Joys. 



TURF-FIRES — SPRING SONGS 

April 26. — At sunrise, the pure clear sound 
of the meadow lark. An hour later, some 
notes, few and simple, yet delicious and 
perfect, from the bush-sparrow — towards 
noon the reedy trill of the robin. To-day 
is the fairest, sweetest yet — penetrating 
warmth — a lovely veil in the air, partly 
heat-vapor and partly from the turf-fires 
everywhere in patches on the farms. A 
group of soft maples near by silently bursts 
out in crimson tips, buzzing all day with 
busy bees. The white sails of sloops and 
schooners glide up and down the river; and 
long trains of cars, with ponderous roll, or 
faint bell notes, almost constantly on the 
opposite shore. The earliest wild flowers in 
the woods and fields, spicy arbutus, blue 
liverwort, frail anemone, and the pretty 
white blossoms of the bloodroot. I launch 
45 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

out in slow rambles, discovering them. As 
I go along the roads I like to see the farm- 
ers' fires in patches, burning the dry brush, 
turf, debris. How the smoke crawls along, 
flat to the' ground, slanting, slowly ris- 
ing, reaching away, and at last dissipat- 
ing. I like its acrid smell — whirls just 
reaching me — welcomer than French per- 
fume. 

The birds are plenty; of any sort, or of 
two or three sorts, curiously, not a sign, till 
suddenly some warm, gushing, sunny April 
(or even March) day — lo ! there they are, 
from twig to twig, or fence to fence, flirting, 
singing, some mating, preparing to build. 
But most of them en passant — a fortnight, 
a month in these parts, and then away. 
As in all phases, Nature keeps up her vital, 
copious, eternal procession. Still, plenty of 
the birds hang around all or most of the 
season — now their love-time, and era of 
nest-building. I find flying over the river, 
crows, gulls and hawks. I hear the after- 
46 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

noon shriek of the latter, darting about, 
preparing to nest. The oriole will soon be 
heard here, and the twanging meoeow of the 
cat-bird; also the king-bird, cuckoo and the 
warblers. All along, there are three pe- 
culiarly characteristic spring songs — the 
meadow-lark's, so sweet, so alert and re- 
monstrating (as if he said, "don't you see? " 
or, "can't you understand? ") — the cheery, 
mellow, human tones of the robin — (I 
have been trying for years to get a brief 
term, or phrase, that would identify and 
describe that robin call) — and the amo- 
rous whistle of the high-hole. Insects are 
out plentifully at midday. 

April 2Q. — As we drove lingering along 
the road we heard, just after sundown, the 
song of the wood-thrush. We stopp'd with- 
out a word, and listen'd long. The delicious 
notes — a sweet, artless, voluntary, simple 
anthem, as from the flute-stops of some 
organ, wafted through the twilight — echo- 
ing well to us from the perpendicular high 
47 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

rock, where, in some thick young trees' 
recesses at the base, sat the bird — filPd 
our senses, our souls. ■ 



WARBLE FOR LILAC-TIME 

Warble me now for joy of lilac-time, (re- 
turning in reminiscence,) 
Sort me tongue and lips for Nature's sake, 

souvenirs of earliest summer, 
Gather the welcome signs, (as children with 

pebbles or stringing shells,) 
Put in April and May, the hylas croaking 

in the ponds, the elastic air, 
Bees, butterflies, the sparrow with its 

simple notes, 
Blue-bird and darting swallow, nor forget 

the high-hole flashing his golden 

wings. 
The tranquil sunny haze, the clinging smoke, 

the vapor, 
Shimmer of waters with fish in them, the 

cerulean above, 
All that is jocund and sparkling, the brooks 

running, 

49 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

The maple woods, the crisp February days 
and the sugar-making, 

The robin where he hops, bright-eyed, 
brown-breasted, 

With musical clear call at sunrise, and again 
at sunset, 

Or flitting among the trees of the apple- 
orchard, ^building the nest of his 
mate, 

The melted snow of March, the willow send- 
ing forth its yellow-green sprouts, 

For spring-time is here! the summer is 
here! and what is this in it and 
from it ? ' 

Thou, soul, unloosen'd — the restlessness 
after I know not what; 

Come, let us lag here no longer, let us be up 
and away! 

O if one could but fly like a bird ! 

O to escape, to sail forth as in a ship ! 

To glide with thee O soul, o'er all, in all, as 
a ship o'er the waters; 

Gathering these hints, the preludes, the 
5o 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

blue sky, the grass, the morning 

drops of dew, 
The lilac-scent, the bushes with dark green 

heart-shaped leaves, 
Wood-violets, the little delicate pale blos- 
soms called innocence, 
Samples and sorts not for themselves alone, 

but for their atmosphere, 
To grace the bush I love — to sing with the 

birds, 
A warble for joy of lilac-time, returning in 

reminiscence. 



BUMBLE-BEES 

May-month — month of swarming, sing- 
ing, mating birds — the bumble-bee month 
— month of the flowering lilac — (and then 
my own birth-month). As I jot this para- 
graph, I am out just after sunrise, and down 
towards the creek. The lights, perfumes, 
melodies — the bluebirds, grass birds and 
robins, in every direction — the noisy, 
vocal, natural concert. For undertones, a 
neighboring wood-pecker tapping his tree, 
and the distant clarion of chanticleer. Then 
the fresh-earth smells — the colors, the 
delicate drabs and thin blues of the per- 
spective. The bright green of the grass has 
receiv'd an added tinge from the last two 
days' mildness and moisture. How the sun 
silently mounts in the broad clear sky, on 
his day's journey! How the warm beams 
bathe all, and come streaming kissingly and 
almost hot on my face! 
52 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

A while since the croaking of the pond- 
frogs and the first white of the dog-wood 
blossoms. Now the golden dandelions in 
endless profusion, spotting the ground 
everywhere. The white cherry and pear- 
blows — the wild violets, with their blue 
eyes looking up and saluting my feet, as I 
saunter the wood-edge — the rosy blush of 
budding apple-trees — the light-clear em- 
erald hue of the wheat-fields — the darker 
green of the rye — a warm elasticity per- 
vading the air — the cedar-bushes profusely 
deck'd with their little brown apples — the 
summer fully awakening — the convoca- 
tion of blackbirds, garrulous flocks of them, 
gathering on some tree, and making the 
hour and place noisy as I sit near. 

Later. — Nature marches in procession, 
in sections, like the corps of an army. All 
have done much for me, and still do. But 
for the last two days it has been the great 
wild bee, the humble-bee, or "bumble," as 
the children call him. As I walk, or hobble, 
53 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

from the farm-house down to the creek, I 
traverse the before-mention'd lane, fenced 
by old rails, with many splits, splinters, 
breaks, holes, &c, the choice habitat of 
those crooning, hairy insects. Up and down 
and by and between these rails, they swarm 
and dart and fly in countless myriads. As 
I wend slowly along, I am often accom- 
panied with a moving cloud of them. They 
play a leading part in my morning, midday 
or sunset rambles, and often dominate the 
landscape in a way I never before thought 
of — fill the long lane, not by scores or 
hundreds only, but by thousands. Large 
and vivacious and swift, with wonderful 
momentum and a loud swelling, perpetual 
hum, varied now and then by something 
almost like a shriek, they dart to and fro, 
in rapid flashes, chasing each other, and 
(little things as they are,) conveying to me 
a new and pronounc'd sense of strength, 
beauty, vitality and movement. Are they 
in their mating season? or what is the mean- 
54 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

ing of this plenitude, swiftness, eagerness, 
display? As I walk'd, I thought I was fol- 
io w'd by a particular swarm, but upon 
observation I saw that it was a rapid suc- 
cession of changing swarms, one after 
another. 

As I write, I am seated under a big wild- 
cherry tree — the warm day temper'd by 
partial clouds and a fresh breeze, neither 
too heavy nor light — and here I sit long 
and long, envelop'd in the deep musical 
drone of these bees, flitting, balancing, 
darting to and fro about me by hundreds — 
big fellows with light yellow jackets, great 
glistening swelling bodies, stumpy heads 
and gauzy wings — humming their per- 
petual rich mellow boom. (Is there not a 
hint in it for a musical composition, of 
which it should be the back-ground? some 
bumble-bee symphony?) How it all nour- 
ishes, lulls me, in the way most needed; the 
open air, the rye-fields, the apple orchards. 
The last two days have been faultless in 
55 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

sun, breeze, temperature and everything; 
never two more perfect days, and I have 
enjoy'd them wonderfully. My health is 
somewhat better, and my spirit at peace. 
(Yet the anniversary of the saddest loss 
and sorrow of my life is close at hand.) 

Another jotting, another perfect day: 
forenoon, from 7 to 9, two hours envelop'd 
in sound of bumble-bees and bird-music. 
Down in the apple-trees and in a neigh- 
boring cedar were three or four russet- 
back'd thrushes, each singing his hest, and 
roulading in ways I never heard surpass'd. 
Two hours I abandon myself to hearing 
them, and indolently absorbing the scene. 
Almost every bird I notice has a special 
time in the year — sometimes limited to a 
few days — when it sings its best; and now 
is the period of these russet-backs. Mean- 
while, up and down the lane, the darting, 
droning, musical bumble-bees. A great 
swarm again for my entourage as I return 
home, moving along with me as before. 
56 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

As I write this, two or three weeks later, 
I am sitting near the brook under a tulip 
tree, seventy feet high, thick with the fresh 
verdure of its young maturity — a beauti- 
ful object — every branch, every leaf per- 
fect. From top to bottom, seeking the sweet 
juice in the blossoms, it swarms with myri- 
ads of these wild bees, whose loud and 
steady humming makes an undertone to the 
whole, and to my mood and the hour. 



OUT OF MAY'S SHOWS SELECTED 

Apple orchards, the trees all cover'd with 

blossoms; 
Wheat fields carpeted far and near in vital 

emerald green; 
The eternal, exhaustless freshness of each 

early morning; 
The yellow, golden, transparent haze of the 

warm afternoon sun; 
The aspiring lilac bushes with profuse 

purple or white flowers. 



58 



A WATERFALL 

I jot this mem. in a wild scene of woods 
and hills, where we have come to visit a 
waterfall. I never saw finer or more copious 
hemlocks, many of them large, some old 
and hoary. Such a sentiment to them, 
secretive, shaggy — what I call weather- 
beaten and let-alone — a rich underlay of 
ferns, yew sprouts and mosses, beginning 
to be spotted with the early summer wild- 
flowers. Enveloping all, the monotone and 
liquid gurgle from the hoarse impetuous 
copious fall — the greenish-tawny, darkly 
transparent waters, plunging with velocity 
down the rocks, with patches of milk-white 
foam — a stream of hurrying amber, thirty 
feet wide, risen far back in the hills and 
woods, now rushing with volume — every 
hundred rods a fall, and sometimes three or 
four in that distance. A primitive forest 
59 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

druidical, solitary and savage — not ten 
visitors a year — broken rocks everywhere 
— shade overhead, thick underfoot with 
leaves — a just palpable wild and delicate 
aroma* 



SONG OF THE OPEN ROAD 



Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open 
road, 

Healthy, free, the world before me, 

The long brown path before me leading 
wherever I choose. 

Henceforth I ask not good-fortune, I my- 
self am good-fortune, 

Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone 
no more, need nothing, 

Done with indoor complaints, libraries, 
querulous criticisms, 

Strong and content I travel the open road. 

The earth, that is sufficient, 
I do not want the constellations any nearer, 
I know they are very well where they are, 
I know they suffice for those who belong to 
them. 

61 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

(Still here I carry my old delicious burdens, 
I carry them, men and women, I carry 

them with me wherever I go, 
I swear it is impossible for me to get rid of 

them, 
I am filPd with them, and I will fill them in 

return.) 

2 
You road I enter upon and look around, I 

believe you are not all that is here, 
I believe that much unseen is also here. 

Here the profound lesson of reception, nor 
preference nor denial, 

The black with his woolly head, the felon, 
the diseas'd, the illiterate person, are 
not denied; 

The birth, the hasting after the physician, 
the beggar's tramp, the drunkard's 
stagger, the laughing party of 
mechanics, 

The escaped youth, the rich person's car- 
riage, the fop, the eloping couple, 
62 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

The early market-man, the hearse, the 
moving of furniture into the town, 
the return back from the town, 

They pass, I also pass, any thing passes, 
none can be interdicted, 

None but are accepted, none but shall be 
dear to me. 

3 

You air that serves me with breath to speak! 

You objects that call from diffusion my 
meanings and give them shape! 

You light that wraps me and all things in 
delicate equable showers! 

You paths worn in the irregular hollows by 
the roadsides! 

I believe you are latent with unseen exist- 
ences, you are so dear to me. 

You flagg'd walks of the cities! you strong 

curbs at the edges! 
You ferries! you planks and posts of 

wharves! you timber-lined sides! 

you distant ships! 
63 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

You rows of houses! you window-pierc'd 
facades! you roofs! 

You porches and entrances! you copings 
and iron guards! 

You windows whose transparent shells 
might expose so much! 

You doors and ascending steps! you arches! 

You gray stones of interminable pavements! 
you trodden crossings! 

From all that has touch'd you I believe you 
have imparted to yourselves, and 
now would impart the same secretly 
to me, 

From the living and the dead you have 
peopled your impassive surfaces, 
and the spirits thereof would be evi- 
dent and amicable with me. 

4 

The earth expanding right hand and left 

hand, 
The picture alive, every part in its best 

light, 

64 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

The music falling in where it is wanted, and 
stopping where it is not wanted, 

The cheerful voice of the public road, the 
gay fresh sentiment of the road. 

O highway I travel, do you say to me Do 

not leave me ? 
Do you say Venture not — if you leave me 

you are lost ? 
Do you say J am already prepared, I am 

well-beaten and undented, adhere to 

me? 

public road, I say back I am not afraid to 

leave you, yet I love you, 
You express me better than I can express 

myself, 
You shall be more to me than my poem. 

1 think heroic deeds were all conceiv'd in 

the open air, and all free poems also, 
I think I could stop here myself and do 
miracles, 

. 65 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

I think whatever I shall meet on the road I 
shall like, and whoever beholds me 
shall like me, 

I think whoever I see must be happy. 

S 
From this hour I ordain myself loos'd of 

limits and imaginary lines, 
Going where I list, my own master total 

and absolute, 
Listening to others, considering well what 

they say, 
Pausing, searching, receiving, contemplat- 
ing, 
Gently, but with undeniable will, divesting 

myself of the holds that would hold 

me. 
I inhale great draughts of space, 
The east and the west are mine, and the 

north and the south are mine. 

I am larger, better than I thought, 
I did not know I held so much goodness. 
66 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

All seems beautiful to me, 

I can repeat over to men and women You 

have done such good to me I would 

do the same to you, 
I will recruit for myself and you as I go, 
I will scatter myself among men and women 

as I go, 
I will toss a new gladness and roughness 

among them, 
Whoever denies me it shall not trouble me, 
Whoever accepts me he or she shall be 

blessed and shall bless me. 



Now if a thousand perfect men were to 
appear it would not amaze me, 

Now if a thousand beautiful forms of women 
appear'd it would not astonish me. 

Now I see the secret of the making of the 

best persons, 
It is to grow in the open air and to eat and 

sleep with the earth. 
67 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

Here a great personal deed has room, 
(Such a deed seizes upon the hearts of the 

whole race of men, 
Its effusion of strength and will overwhelms 

law and mocks all authority and all 

argument against it). 

Here is the test of wisdom, 

Wisdom is not finally tested in schools, 

Wisdom cannot be pass'd from one having 
it to another not having it, 

Wisdom is of the soul, is not susceptible of 
proof, is its own proof, 

Applies to all stages and objects and quali- 
ties and is content, 

Is the certainty of the reality and immor- 
tality of things, and the excellence of 
things; 

Something there is in the float of the sight of 
things that provokes it out of the soul. 

Now I re-examine philosophies and religions, 

They may prove well in lecture-rooms, yet 

68 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

not prove at all under the spacious 
clouds and along the landscape and 
flowing currents. 

Here is realization, 

Here is a man tallied — he realizes here 
what he has in him, 

The past, the future, majesty, love — if 
they are vacant of you, you are va- 
cant of them. 

Only the kernel of every object nourishes; 
Where is he who tears off the husks for you 

and me ? 
Where is he that undoes stratagems and 

envelopes for you and me ? 

Here is adhesiveness, it is not previously 

fashion'd, it is apropos; 
Do you know what it is as you pass to be 

loved by strangers ? 
Do you know the talk of those turning 

eye-balls ? 



69 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

7 
Here is the efflux of the soul, 
The efflux of the soul comes from within 

through embower'd gates, ever pro- 
voking questions, 
These yearnings why are they? these 

thoughts in the darkness why are 

they? 
Why are there men and women that while 

they are nigh me the sunlight ex- 
pands my blood ? 
Why when they leave me do my pennants of 

joy sink flat and lank ? 
Why are there trees I never walk under 

but large and melodious thoughts 

descend upon me ? 
(I think they hang there winter and summer 

on those trees and always drop fruit 

as I pass) ; 
What is it I interchange so suddenly with 

strangers ? 
What with some driver as I ride on the seat 

by his side ? 

70 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

What with some fisherman drawing his 

seine by the shore as I walk by and 

pause ? 
What gives me to be free to a woman's and 

man's good-will? what gives them 

to be free to mine ? 

8 

The efflux of the soul is happiness, here is 

happiness, 
I think it pervades the open air, waiting at 

all times, 
Now it flowsunto us, we are rightly charged. 

Here rises the fluid and attaching character, 
The fluid and attaching character is the 
freshness and sweetness of man and 
woman, 
(The herbs of the morning sprout no fresher 
and sweeter every day out of the 
roots of themselves, than it sprouts 
fresh and sweet continually out of 
itself). 

7i 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

Toward the fluid and attaching character 

exudes the sweat of the love of young 

and old, 
From it falls distill'd the charm that mocks 

beauty and attainments, 
Toward it heaves the shuddering longing 

ache of contact. 

9 

Allons! whoever you are come travel with 

me! 
Traveling with me you find what never 

tires. 

The earth never tires, 

The earth is rude, silent, incomprehensible 
at first, Nature is rude and incompre- 
hensible at first. 

Be not discouraged, keep on, there are 
divine things well envelop'd, 

I swear to you there are divine things more 
beautiful than words can tell. 



72 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

Allons! we must not stop here, 

However sweet these laid-up stores, how- 
ever convenient this dwelling we 
cannot remain here, 

However shelter'd this port and however 
calm these waters we must not 
anchor here, 

However welcome the hospitality that sur- 
rounds us we are permitted to re- 
ceive it but a little while. 



10 

Allons! the inducements shall be greater, 

We will sail pathless and wild seas, 

We will go where winds blow, waves dash, 

and the Yankee clipper speeds by 

under full sail. 

Allons! with power, liberty, the earth, the 
elements, 

Health, defiance, gayety, self-esteem, curi- 
osity; 

73 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

Allons! from all formules! 
From your formules, O bat-eyed and ma- 
terialistic priests. 

The stale cadaver blocks up the passage 
— the burial waits no longer. 

Allons! yet take warning! 

He traveling with me needs the best blood, 

thews, endurance, 
None may come to the trial till he or she 

bring courage and health, 
Come not here if you have already spent 

the best of yourself, 
Only those may come who come in sweet 

and determin'd bodies, 
No diseas'd person, no rum-drinker or 

venereal taint is permitted here. 
(I and mine do not convince by arguments, 

similes, rhymes, 
We convince by our presence.) 



74 



THE ROLLING EARTH 
ii 

Listen! I will be honest with you, 

I do not offer the old smooth prizes, but 
offer rough new prizes, 

These are the days that must happen to 
you: 

You shall not heap up what is calPd riches, 

You shall scatter with lavish hand all that 
you earn or achieve, 

You but arrive at the city to which you 
were destined, you hardly settle your- 
self to satisfaction before you are 
calPd by an irresistible call to de- 
part, 

You shall be treated to the ironical smiles 
and mockings of those who remain 
behind you, 

What beckonings of love you receive you 
shall only answer with passionate 
kisses of parting, 

You shall not allow the hold of those who 
spread their reach'd hands toward 
you. 

75 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

12 

Allons! after the great Companions, and to 
belong to them! 

They too are on the road — they are the 
swift and majestic men — they are 
the greatest women, 

Enjoyers of calms of seas and storms of 
seas, 

Sailors of many a ship, walkers of many a 
mile of land, 

Habitues of many distant countries, habi- 
tue's of far-distant dwellings, 

Trusters of men and women, observers of 
cities, solitary toilers, 

Pausers and contemplators of tufts, blos- 
soms, shells of the shore, 

Dancers at wedding-dances, kissers of 
brides, tender helpers of children, 
bearers of children, 

Soldiers of revolts, standers by gaping 
graves, lowerers-down of coffins, 

Journeyers over consecutive seasons, over 
the years, the curious years each 
76 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

emerging from that which preceded 

it, 
Journeyers as with companions, namely 

their own diverse phases, 
Forth-steppers from the latent unrealized 

baby-days, 
Journeyers gayly with their own youth, 

journeyers with their bearded and 

well-grain'd manhood, 
Journeyers with their womanhood, ample, 

unsurpass'd, content, 
Journeyers with their own sublime old age 

of manhood or womanhood, 
Old age, calm, expanded, broad with the 

haughty breadth of the universe, 
Old age, flowing free with the delicious 

near-by freedom of death. 

13 

Allons! to that which is endless as it was 

beginningless, 
To undergo much, tramps of days, rests of 

nights, 

77 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

To merge all in the travel they tend to, and 
the days and nights they tend to, 

Again to merge them in the start of superior 
journeys, 

To see nothing anywhere but what you 
may reach it and pass it, 

To conceive no time, however distant, but 
what you may reach it and pass 
it, 

To look up or down no road but it stretches 
and waits for you, however long but 
it stretches and waits for you, 

To see no being, not God's or any, but you 
also go thither, 

To see no possession but you may possess 
it, enjoying all without labor or pur- 
chase, abstracting the feast yet not 
abstracting one particle of it, 

To take, the best of the farmer's farm and 
the rich man's elegant villa, and the 
chaste blessings of the well-married 
couple, and the fruits of orchards 
and the flowers of gardens, 
78 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

To take to your use out of the compact 

cities as you pass through, 
To carry buildings and streets with you 

afterward wherever you go, 
To gather the minds of men out of their 

brains as you encounter them, to 

gather the love out of their hearts, 
To take your lovers on the road with you, for 

all that you leave them behind you, 
To know the universe itself as a road, as 

many roads, as roads for traveling 

souls. 

All parts away for the progress of souls, 
All religion, all solid things, arts, govern- 
ments — all that was or is apparent 
upon this globe or any globe, falls 
into niches and corners before the 
procession of souls along the grand 
roads of the universe. 

Of the progress of the souls of men and 
women along the grand roads of the 
79 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

universe, all other progress is the 
needed emblem and sustenance. 

Forever alive, forever forward, 

Stately, solemn, sad, withdrawn, baffled, 
mad, turbulent, feeble, dissatisfied, 

Desperate, proud, fond, sick, accepted by- 
men, rejected by men, 

They go! they go! I know that they go, 
but I know not where they go, 

But I know that they go toward the best — 
toward something great. 

Whoever you are, come forth! or man or 
woman come forth! 

You must not stay sleeping and dallying 
there in the house, though you built 
it, or though it has been built for 
you. 

Out of the dark confinement! out from be- 
hind the screen! 

It is useless to protest, I know all and ex- 
pose it. 

80 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

Behold through you as bad as the rest, 

Through the laughter, dancing, dining, 
supping, of people, 

Inside of dresses and ornaments, inside of 
those wash'd and trimm'd faces, 

Behold a secret silent loathing and de- 
spair. 

No husband, no wife, no friend, trusted to 
hear the confession, 

Another self, a duplicate of every one, 
skulking and hiding it goes, 

Formless and wordless through the streets 
of the cities, polite and bland in the 
parlors, 

In the cars of railroads, in steamboats, in 
the public assembly, 

Home to the houses of men and women, at 
the table, in the bedroom, every- 
where, 

Smartly attired, countenance smiling, form 
upright, death under the breast- 
bones, hell under the skull-bones, 
81 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

Under the broadcloth and gloves, under 
the ribbons and artificial flowers, 

Keeping fair with the customs, speaking 
not a syllable of itself, 

Speaking of any thing else but never of 
itself. 

14 

Allons! through struggles and wars! 
The goal that was named cannot be coun- 
termanded. 

Have the past struggles succeeded ? 

What has succeeded? yourself? your na- 
tion ? Nature ? 

Now understand me well — it is provided 
in the essence of things that from 
any fruition of success, no matter 
what, shall come forth something to 
make a greater struggle necessary. 

My call is the call of battle, I nourish active 
rebellion, 

82 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

He going with me must go well arm'd, 
He going with me goes often with spare 
diet, poverty, angry enemies, deser- 
tions. 

15 

Allons! the road is before us! 

It is safe — I have tried it — my own feet 

have tried it well — be not detain'd! 
Let the paper remain on the desk unwritten, 

and the book on the shelf unopen'd! 
Let the tools remain in the workshop! let 

the money remain unearn'd! 
Let the school stand! mind not the cry of 

the teacher! 
Let the preacher preach in his pulpit! let 

the lawyer plead in the court, and 

the judge expound the law. 

Camerado, I give you my hand ! 

I give you my love more precious than 

money ! 
I give you myself before preaching or law; 

83 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

Will you give me yourself ? will you come 

travel with me ? 
Shall we stick by each other as long as we 

live? 



BIRDS MIGRATING AT MIDNIGHT 

Did you ever chance to hear the midnight 
flight of birds passing through the air and 
darkness overhead, in countless armies, 
changing their early or late summer habi- 
tat? It is something not to be forgotten. 
A friend called me up just after 12 last night 
to mark the peculiar noise of unusually 
immense flocks migrating north (rather 
late this year) . In the silence, shadow and 
delicious odor of the hour, (the natural 
perfume belonging to the night alone,) I 
thought it rare music. You could hear the 
characteristic motion — once or twice "the 
rush of mighty wings," but often a velvety 
rustle, long drawn out — sometimes quite 
near — with continual calls and chirps, and 
some song-notes. It all lasted from 12 till 
after 3. Once in a while the species was 
plainly distinguishable; I could make out 
85 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

the bobolink, tanager, Wilson's thrush, 
white-crown'd sparrow, and occasionally 
from high in the air came the notes of the 
plover. 



SUMMER SIGHTS AND INDOLENCES 

June ioth. — As I write, 5^ p.m., here by 
the creek, nothing can exceed the quiet 
splendor and freshness around me. We 
had a heavy shower, with brief thunder and 
lightning, in the middle of the day; and 
since, overhead, one of those not uncom- 
mon yet indescribable skies (in quality, not 
details or forms) of limpid blue, with rolling 
silver-fringed clouds, and a pure-dazzling 
sun. For underlay, trees in fulness of ten- 
der foliage — liquid, reedy, long-drawn 
notes of birds — based by the fretful mew- 
ing of a querulous cat-bird, and the pleas- 
ant chippering-shriek of two kingfishers. 
I have been watching the latter the last 
half hour, on their regular evening frolic 
over and in the stream; evidently a spree of 
the liveliest kind. They pursue each other, 
whirling and wheeling around, with many 
87 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

a jocund downward dip, splashing the spray 
in jets of diamonds — and then off they 
swoop, with slanting wings and graceful 
flight, sometimes so near me I can plainly 
see their dark-gray feather-bodies and milk- 
white necks. 



ME IMPERTURBE 

Me imperturbe, standing at ease in Nature, 
Master of all or mistress of all, aplomb in 

the midst of irrational things, 
Imbued as they, passive, receptive, silent 

as they, 
Finding my occupation, poverty, notoriety, 

foibles, crimes, less important than 

I thought, 
Me toward the Mexican sea, or in the Man- 

nahatta or the Tennessee, or far 

north or inland, 
A river man, or a man of the woods or of 

any farm-life of these States or of the 

coast, or the lakes or Kanada, 
Me wherever my life is lived, O to be self- 
balanced for contingencies, 
To confront night, storms, hunger, ridicule, 

accidents, rebuffs, as the trees and 

animals do. 

8 9 



THOUGHTS UNDER AN OAK — A 
DREAM 

June 2, — This is the fourth day of a dark 
northeast storm, wind and rain. Day before 
yesterday was my birthday. I have now 
enter'd on my sixtieth year. Every day of 
the storm, protected by overshoes and a 
waterproof blanket, I regularly come down 
to the pond, and ensconce myself under the 
lee of the great oak; I am here now writing 
these lines. The dark smoke-color'd clouds 
roll in furious silence athwart the sky; the 
soft green leaves dangle all around me; the 
wind steadily keeps up its hoarse, soothing 
music, over my head — Nature's mighty 
whisper. Seated here in solitude I have been 
musing over my life — connecting events, 
dates, as links of a chain, neither sadly nor 
cheerily, but somehow, to-day here under 
the oak, in the rain, in an unusually matter- 
of-fact spirit. 

90 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

But my great oak — sturdy, vital, green 
— five feet thick at the butt. I sit a great 
deal near or under him. Then the tulip tree 
near by — the Apollo of the woods — tall 
and graceful, yet robust and sinewy, inimit- 
able in hang of foliage and throwing-out 
of limb; as if the beauteous, vital, leafy 
creature could walk, if it only would. (I 
had a sort of dream-trance the other day, 
in which I saw my favorite trees step out 
and promenade up, down and around, very 
curiously — with a whisper from one, lean- 
ing down as he pass'd me, We do all this on 
the present occasion, exceptionally, just for 
you.) 



THE LESSON OF A TREE 

September i. — I should not take either the 
biggest or the most picturesque tree to 
illustrate it. Here is one of my favorites 
now before me, a fine yellow poplar, quite 
straight, perhaps ninety feet high, and four 
thick at the butt. How strong, vital, en- 
during! how dumbly eloquent! What sug- 
gestions of imperturbability and being, as 
against the human trait of mere seeming. 
Then the qualities, almost emotional, pal- 
pably artistic, heroic, of a tree; so innocent 
and harmless, yet so savage. It is, yet says 
nothing. How it rebukes by its tough and 
equable serenity all weathers, this gusty- 
temper'd little whiffet, man, that runs in- 
doors at a mite of rain or snow. Science (or 
rather half-way science) scoffs at reminis- 
cence of dryad and hamadryad, and of trees 
speaking. But, if they don't, they do as 
92 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

well as most speaking, writing, poetry, ser- 
mons — or rather they do a great deal 
better. I should say indeed that those old 
dryad-reminiscences are quite as true as 
any, and profounder than most reminis- 
cences we get. ("Cut this out," as the 
quack mediciners say, and keep by you.) 
Go and sit in a grove or woods, with one or 
more of those voiceless companions, and 
read the foregoing, and think. 

One lesson from affiliating a tree — per- 
haps the greatest moral lesson anyhow from 
earth, rocks, animals, is that same lesson 
of inherency, of what is, without the least 
regard to what the looker-on (the critic) 
supposes or says, or whether he likes or dis- 
likes. What worse — what more general 
malady pervades each and all of us, our 
literature, education, attitude toward each 
other, (even toward ourselves,) than a mor- 
bid trouble about seems, (generally tempo- 
rarily seems too,) and no trouble at all, or 
hardly any, about the sane, slow-growing, 

93 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

perennial, real parts of character, books, 
friendship, marriage — humanity's invisi- 
ble foundations and hold-together? (As the 
all-basis, the nerve, the great-sympathetic, 
the plenum within humanity, giving stamp 
to everything, is necessarily invisible.) 

August 4, 6 P.M. — Lights and shades 
and rare effects on tree-foliage and grass — 
transparent greens, grays, etc., all in sunset 
pomp and dazzle. The clear beams are now 
thrown in many new places, on the quilted, 
seam'd, bronze-drab, lower tree-trunks, 
shadow'd except at this hour — now flood- 
ing their young and old columnar ruggedness 
with strong light, unfolding to my sense 
new amazing features of silent, shaggy 
charm, the solid bark, the expression of 
harmless impassiveness, with many a bulge 
and gnarl unreck'd before. In the reveal- 
ings of such light, such exceptional hour, 
such mood, one does not wonder at the old 
story fables, (indeed, why fables?) of people 
falling into love-sickness with trees, seiz'd 
94 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

extatic with the mystic realism of the resist- 
less silent strength in them — strength, 
which after all is perhaps the last, com- 
pletest, highest beauty. 



THE VOICE OF THE RAIN 

And who art thou? said I to the soft-falling 

shower, 
Which, strange to tell, gave me an answer, 

as here translated: 
I am the Poem of Earth, said the voice of 

the rain, 
Eternal I rise impalpable out of the land 

and the bottomless sea, 
Upward to heaven, whence, vaguely form'd, 

altogether changed, and yet the same, 
I descend to lave the drouths, atomies, 

dust-layers of the globe, 
And all that in them without me were seeds 

only, latent, unborn; 
And forever, by day and night, I give back 

life to my own origin, and make pure 

and beautify it: 
(For song, issuing from its birth-place, after 

fulfilment, wandering, 
Reck'd or unreck'd, duly with love returns.) 
96 



THE OAKS AND I 

September 5, '77. — I write this, n a.m., 
shelter'd under a dense oak by the bank, 
where I have taken refuge from a sudden 
rain. I came down here, (we had sulky 
drizzles all the morning, but an hour ago 
a lull,) for the before-mention'd daily and 
simple exercise I am fond of — to pull on 
that young hickory sapling out there — 
to sway and yield to its tough-limber up- 
right stem — haply to get into my old sin- 
ews some of its elastic fibre and clear sap. 
I stand on the turf and take these health- 
pulls moderately and at intervals for nearly 
an hour, inhaling great draughts of fresh 
air. Wandering by the creek, I have three 
or four naturally favorable spots where I 
rest — besides a chair I lug with me and 
use for more deliberate occasions. At other 
spots convenient I have selected, besides 
97 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

the hickory just named, strong and limber 
boughs of beech or holly, in easy-reaching 
distance, for my natural gymnasia, for 
arms, chest, trunk-muscles. I can soon feel 
the sap and sinew rising through me, like 
mercury to heat. I hold on boughs or slen- 
der trees caressingly there in the sun and 
shade, wrestle with their innocent stalwart- 
ness — and know the virtue thereof passes 
from them into me. (Or may-be we inter- 
change — may-be the trees are more aware 
of it all than I ever thought.) 

But now pleasantly imprison'd here under 
the big oak — the rain dripping, and the 
sky cover'd with leaden clouds — nothing 
but the pond on one side, and the other a 
spread of grass, spotted with the milky 
blossoms of the wild carrot — the sound of 
an axe wielded at some distant wood-pile 
— yet in this dull scene (as most folks 
would call it) why am I so (almost) happy 
here and alone? Why would any intrusion, 
even from people I like, spoil the charm? 
98 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

But am I alone? Doubtless there comes a 
time — perhaps it has come to me — when 
one feels through his whole being, and pro- 
nouncedly the emotional part, that identity 
between himself subjectively and Nature 
objectively which Schelling and Fichte are 
so fond of pressing. How it is I know not, 
but I often realize a presence here — in 
clear moods I am certain of it, and neither 
chemistry nor reasoning nor esthetics will 
give the least explanation. All the past 
two summers it has been strengthening and 
nourishing my sick body and soul, as never 
before. Thanks, invisible physician, for 
thy silent delicious medicine, thy day and 
night, thy waters and thy airs, the banks, 
the grass, the trees, and e'en the weeds! 



A QUINTETTE 

While I have been kept by the rain under 
the shelter of my great oak, (perfectly dry 
and comfortable, to the rattle of the drops 
all around,) I have pencilPd off the mood of 
the hour in a little quintette, which I will 
give you: 

At vacancy with Nature, 
Acceptive and at ease, 
Distilling the present hour, 
Whatever, wherever it is, 
And over the past, oblivion. 

Can you get hold of it, reader dear? and 
how do you like it anyhow? 



ioo 



KOSMOS 

Who includes diversity and is Nature, 
Who is the amplitude of the earth, and the 

coarseness and sexuality of the earth, 

and the great charity of the earth, 

and the equilibrium also, 
Who has not look'd forth from the windows 

the eyes for nothing, or whose brain 

held audience with messengers for 

nothing, 
Who contains believers and disbelievers, 

who is the most majestic lover, 
Who holds duly his or her triune proportion 

of realism, spiritualism, and of the 

aesthetic or intellectual, 
Who having consider'd the body finds all 

its organs and parts good, 
Who, out of the theory of the earth and of 

his or her body understands by subtle 

analogies all other theories, 

IOI 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

The theory of a city, a poem, and of the 
large politics of these States; 

Who believes not only in our globe with its 
sun and moon, but in other globes 
with their suns and moons, 

Who, constructing the house of himself or 
herself, not for a day but for all 
time, sees races, eras, dates, genera- 
tions, 

The past, the future, dwelling there, like 
space, inseparable together. 



BIRD-WHISTLING 

How much music (wild, simple, savage, 
doubtless, but so tart-sweet), there is in 
mere whistling. It is four-fifths of the utter- 
ance of birds. There are all sorts and styles. 
For the last half-hour, now, while I have 
been sitting here, some feather'd fellow 
away off in the bushes has been repeating 
over and over again what I may call a kind 
of throbbing whistle. And now a bird about 
the robin size has just appear'd, all mul- 
berry red, flitting among the bushes — head, 
wings, body, deep red, not very bright — 
no song, as I have heard. 4 o'clock : There 
is a real concert going on around me — 
a dozen different birds pitching in with 
a will. There have been occasional rains, 
and the growths all show its vivifying influ- 
ences. As I finish this, seated on a log close 
by the pond-edge, much chirping and trill- 
103 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

ing in the distance, and a feather'd recluse 
in the woods near by is singing deliciously 
— not many notes, but full of music of 
almost human sympathy — continuing for 
a long, long while. 



THOU ORB ALOFT FULL-DAZZLING 

Thou orb aloft full-dazzling! thou hot 
October noon! 

Flooding with sheeny light the gray beach 
sand, 

The sibilant near sea with vistas far and 
foam, 

And tawny streaks and shades and spread- 
ing blue; 

O sun of noon refulgent! my special word 
to thee. 

Hear me illustrious! 

Thy lover me, for always I have loved 

thee, 
Even as basking babe, then happy boy 

alone by some wood edge, thy 

touching-distant beams enough, 
Or man matured, or young or old, as now 

to thee I launch my invocation. 
105 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

(Thou canst not with thy dumbness me 
deceive, 

I know before the fitting man all Nature 
yields, 

Though answering not in words, the skies, 
trees, hear his voice — and thou O 
sun, 

As fori thy throes, thy perturbations, sud- 
den breaks and shafts of flame gi- 
gantic, 

I understand them, I know those flames, 
those perturbations well.) 

Thou that with fructifying heat and 

light, 
O'er myriad farms, o'er lands and waters 

North and South, 
O'er Mississippi's endless course, o'er Texas' 

grassy plains, Kanada's woods, 
O'er all the globe that turns its face to thee 

shining in space, 
Thou that impartially inf oldest all, not only 

continents, seas, 
106 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

Thou that to grapes and weeds and little 
wild flowers givest so liberally, 

Shed, shed thyself on mine and me, with 
but a fleeting ray out of thy million 
millions, 

Strike through these chants. 

Nor only launch thy subtle dazzle and thy 

strength for these, 
Prepare the later afternoon of me myself — 

prepare my lengthening shadows,, 
Prepare my starry nights. 



A JANUARY NIGHT 

Fine trips across the wide Delaware to- 
night. Tide pretty high, and a strong ebb. 
River, a little after 8, full of ice, mostly 
broken, but some large cakes making our 
strong-timber'd steamboat hum and quiver 
as she strikes them. In the clear moonlight 
they spread, strange, unearthly, silvery, 
faintly glistening, as far as I can see. Bump- 
ing, trembling, sometimes hissing like a 
thousand snakes, the tide-procession, as we 
wend with or through it, affording a grand 
undertone, in keeping with the scene. Over- 
head, the splendor indescribable; yet some- 
thing haughty, almost supercilious, in the 
night. Never did I realize more latent 
sentiment, almost passion, in those silent 
interminable stars up there. One can under- 
stand, such a night, why, from the days of 
the Pharaohs or Job, the dome of heaven, 
108 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

sprinkled with planets, has supplied the 
subtlest, deepest criticism on human pride, 
glory, ambition. 



WHEN I HEARD THE LEARN'D 
ASTRONOMER 

When I heard the learn'd astronomer, 
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged 

in columns before me, 
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, 

to add, divide, and measure them, 
When I sitting heard the astronomer where 

he lectured with much applause in 

the lecture-room, 
How soon unaccountable I became tired 

and sick, 
Till rising and gliding out I wander'd off by 

myself, 
In the mystical moist night-air, and from 

time to time, 
Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars. 



no 



FULL-STARR'D NIGHTS 

May 21. — Back in Camden. Again com- 
mencing one of those unusually transparent, 
full-starr'd, blue-black nights, as if to show 
that however lush and pompous the day 
may be, there is something left in the not- 
day that can outvie it. The rarest, finest 
sample of long-drawn-out clear-obscure, 
from sundown to 9 o'clock. I went down 
to the Delaware, and cross'd and cross'd. 
Venus like blazing silver well up in the west. 
The large pale thin crescent of the new 
moon, half an hour high, sinking languidly 
under a bar-sinister of cloud, and then 
emerging. Arcturus right overhead. A 
faint fragrant sea-odor wafted up from the 
south. The gloaming, the temper'd cool- 
ness, with every feature of the scene, inde- 
scribably soothing and tonic — one of those 
hours that give hints to the soul, impossible 
in 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

to put in a statement. (Ah, where would be 
any food for spirituality without night and 
the stars?) The vacant spaciousness of the 
air, and the veil'd blue of the heavens, 
seem'd miracles enough. 

As the night advanc'd it changed its 
spirit and garments to ampler stateliness. 
I was almost conscious of a definite pre- 
sence, Nature silently near. The great con- 
stellation of the Water-Serpent stretch'd its 
coils over more than half the heavens. The 
Swan with outspread wings was flying down 
the Milky Way. The northern Crown, the 
Eagle, Lyra, all up there in their places. 
From the whole dome shot down points of 
light, rapport with me, through the clear 
blue-black. All the usual sense of motion, 
all animal life, seem'd discarded, seem'd a 
fiction; a curious power, like the placid rest 
of Egyptian gods, took possession, none the 
less potent for being impalpable. Earlier 
I had seen many bats, balancing in the lu- 
minous twilight, darting their black forms 
112 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

hither and yon over the river; but now they 
altogether disappear'd. The evening star 
and the moon had gone. Alertness and 
peace lay calmly couching together through 
the fluid universal shadows. 

August 26. — Bright has the day been, 
and my spirits an equal forzando. Then 
comes the night, different, inexpressibly 
pensive, with its own tender and temper'd 
splendor. Venus lingers in the west with a 
voluptuous dazzle unshown hitherto this 
summer. Mars rises early, and the red 
sulky moon, two days past her full; Jupiter 
at night's meridian, and the long curling- 
slanted Scorpion stretching full view in the 
south, Aretus-neck'd. Mars walks the heav- 
ens lord-paramount now; all through this 
month I go out after supper and watch for 
him; sometimes getting up at midnight to 
take another look at his unparallePd lustre. 
. . . Pale and distant, but near in the heav- 
ens, Saturn precedes him. 



A CLEAR MIDNIGHT 

This is thy hour O Soul, thy free flight into 

the wordless, 
Away from books, away from art, the day 

erased, the lesson done, 
Thee fully forth emerging, silent, gazing, 

pondering the themes thou lovest 

best, 
Night, sleep, death and the stars. 



114 



HOURS FOR THE SOUL 

July 22, 1878. — Living down in the coun- 
try again. A wonderful conjunction of all 
that goes to make those sometime miracle- 
hours after sunset — so near and yet so far. 
Perfect, or nearly perfect days, I notice, 
are not so very uncommon; but the com- 
binations that make perfect nights are few, 
even in a life time. We have one of those 
perfections to-night. Sunset left things 
pretty clear; the larger stars were visible 
soon as the shades allow'd. A while after 8, 
three or four great black clouds suddenly 
rose, seemingly from different points, and 
sweeping with broad swirls of wind but no 
thunder, underspread the orbs from view 
everywhere, and indicated a violent heat- 
storm. But without storm, clouds, black- 
ness and all, sped and vanish'd as suddenly 
as they had risen; and from a little after 9 
ii5 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

till ii the atmosphere and the whole show- 
above were in that state of exceptional 
clearness and glory just alluded to. In the 
northwest turned the Great Dipper with its 
pointers round the Cynosure. A little south 
of east the constellation of the Scorpion was 
fully up, with red Antares glowing in its 
neck; while dominating, majestic Jupiter 
swam, an hour and a half risen, in the east 
— (no moon till after n). A large part of 
the sky seem'd just laid in great splashes 
of phosphorus. You could look deeper in, 
farther through, than usual; the orbs thick 
as heads of wheat in a field. Not that there 
was any special brilliancy either — nothing 
near as sharp as I have seen of keen winter 
nights, but a curious general luminousness 
throughout to sight, sense, and soul. The 
latter had much to do with it. (I am con- 
vinced there are hours of Nature, especially 
of the atmosphere, mornings and evenings, 
address'd to the soul. Night transcends, 
for that purpose, what the proudest day can 
116 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

do.) Now, indeed, if never before, the heav- 
ens declared the glory of God. It was to 
the full sky of the Bible, of Arabia, of the 
prophets, and of the oldest poems. There, 
in abstraction and stillness, (I had gone off 
by myself to absorb the scene, to have the 
spell unbroken,) the copiousness, the remov- 
edness, vitality, loose-clear-crowdedness, of 
that stellar concave spreading overhead, 
softly absorb 'd into me, rising so free, inter- 
minably high, stretching east, west, north, 
south — and I, though but a point in the 
centre below, embodying all. 

As if for the first time, indeed, creation 
noiselessly sank into and through me its 
placid and untellable lesson, beyond — O, 
so infinitely beyond! — anything from art, 
books, sermons, or from science, old or new. 
The spirit's hour — religion's hour — the 
visible suggestion of God in space and time 
— now once definitely indicated, if never 
again. The untold pointed at — the heav- 
ens all paved with it. The Milky Way, as 
117 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

if some superhuman symphony, some ode 
of universal vagueness, disdaining syllable 
and sound — a flashing glance of Deity, 
address'd to the soul. All silently — the 
indescribable night and stars — far off and 
silently. 

The Dawn. — July 23. — This morning, 
between one and two hours before sunrise, 
a spectacle wrought on the same back- 
ground, yet of quite different beauty and 
meaning. The moon well up in the heavens, 
and past her half, is shining brightly — the 
air and sky of that cynical-clear, Minerva- 
like quality, virgin cool — not the weight 
of sentiment or mystery, or passion's ec- 
stasy indefinable — not the religious sense, 
the varied All, distilPd and sublimated into 
one, of the night just described. Every star 
now clear-cut, showing for just what it is, 
there in the colorless ether. The character 
of the heralded morning, ineffably sweet 
and fresh and limpid, but for the esthetic 
sense alone, and for purity without senti- 
118 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

ment. I have itemized the night — but 
dare I attempt the cloudless dawn? (What 
subtle tie is this between one's soul and the 
break of day? Alike, and yet no two nights 
or mornings show ever exactly alike.) Pre- 
ceded by an immense star, almost unearthly 
in its effusion of white splendor, with two 
or three long unequal spoke-rays of diamond 
radiance, shedding down through the fresh 
morning air below — an hour of this, and 
then the sunrise. 

The East. — What a subject for a poem ! 
Indeed, where else a more pregnant, more 
splendid one? Where one more idealistic- 
real, more subtle, more sensuous-delicate? 
The East, answering all lands, all ages, 
peoples; touching all senses, here, imme- 
diate, now — and yet so indescribably far 
off — such retrospect! The East — long- 
stretching — so losing itself — the orient, 
the gardens of Asia, the womb of history 
and song — forth-issuing all those strange, 
dim cavalcades — 

119 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

Florid with blood, pensive, rapt with musings, hot with 

passion, 
Sultry with perfume, with ample and flowing garments, 
With sunburnt visage, intense soul and glittering eyes. 

Always the East — old, how incalculably 
old! And yet here the same — ours yet, 
fresh as a rose, to every morning, every life, 
to-day — and always will be. 

September 17. — Another presentation — 
same theme — just before sunrise again, 
(a favorite hour with me). The clear gray 
sky, a faint glow in the dull liver-color of 
the east, the cool fresh odor and the mois- 
ture — the cattle and horses off there graz- 
ing in the fields — the star Venus again, 
two hours high. For sounds, the chirping 
of crickets in the grass, the clarion of chan- 
ticleer, and the distant cawing of an early 
crow. Quietly over the dense fringe of 
cedars and pines rises that dazzling, red, 
transparent disk of flame, and the low sheets 
of white vapor roll and roll into dissolution. 

The Moon. — May 18. — I went to bed 
early last night, but found myself waked 
120 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

shortly after 12, and, turning awhile, sleep- 
less and mentally feverish, I rose, dress'd 
myself, sallied forth and walk'd down the 
lane. The full moon, some three or four 
hours up — a sprinkle of light and less- 
light clouds just lazily moving — Jupiter 
an hour high in the east, and here and there 
throughout the heavens a random star ap- 
pearing and disappearing. So beautifully 
veiled and varied — the air, with that early- 
summer perfume, not at all damp or raw — 
at times Luna languidly emerging in richest 
brightness for minutes, and then partially 
envelop'd again. Far off a poor whip-poor- 
will plied his notes incessantly. It was that 
silent time between 1 and 3. 

The rare nocturnal scene, how soon it 
sooth'd and pacified me! Is there not some- 
thing about the moon, some relation or 
reminder, which no poem or literature has 
yet caught? (In very old and primitive 
ballads I have come across lines or asides 
that suggest it.) After a while the clouds 
121 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

-. 

mostly clear'd, and as the moon swam on, 
she carried, shimmering and shifting, deli- 
cate color-effects of pellucid green and tawny- 
vapor. 

Furthermore. February ig, 1880. — Just 
before 10 p.m. cold and entirely clear again, 
the show overhead, bearing southwest, of 
wonderful and crowded magnificence. The 
moon in her third quarter — the clusters of 
the Hyades and Pleiades, with the planet 
Mars between — in full crossing sprawl in 
the sky the great Egyptian X, (Sirius, Pro- 
cyon, and the main stars in the constella- 
tions of the Ship, the Dove, and of Orion) ; 
just north of east Bootes, and in his knee 
Arcturus, an hour high, mounting the 
heaven, ambitiously large and sparkling, as 
if he meant to challenge with Sirius the stel- 
lar supremacy. 

With the sentiment of the stars and moon 
such nights I get all the free margins and 
indefiniteness of music or poetry, fused in 
geometry's utmost exactness. 



I open my scuttle at night and see the far- 
sprinkled systems, 

And all I see multiplied as high as I can 
cipher edge but the rim of the farther 
systems. 

Wider and wider they spread, expanding, 

always expanding, 
Outward and outward and forever outward. 

My sun has his sun and round him obedi- 
ently wheels, 

He joins with his partners a group of supe- 
rior circuit, 

And greater sets follow, making specks of 
the greatest inside them. 

There is no stoppage and never can be stop- 
page, 

If I, you, and the worlds, and all beneath 
or upon their surfaces, were this 
123 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

moment reduced back to a pallid 

float, it would not avail in the long 

run, 
We should surely bring up again where we 

now stand, 
And surely go as much farther, and then 

farther and farther. 

A few quadrillions of eras, a few octillions 
of cubic leagues, do not hazard the 
span or make it impatient, 

They are but parts, any thing is but a part. 

See ever so far, there is limitless space out- 
side of that, 

Count ever so much, there is limitless time 
around that. 

Song of Myself. 



CLOVER AND HAY PERFUME 

July 3d, 4th, 5th. — Clear, hot, favorable 
weather — has been a good summer — the 
growth of clover and grass now generally 
mow'd. The familiar delicious perfume fills 
the barns and lanes. As you go along you 
see the fields of grayish white slightly 
tinged with yellow, the loosely stack'd 
grain, the slow-moving wagons passing, and 
farmers in the fields with stout boys pitch- 
ing and loading the sheaves. The corn is 
about beginning to tassel. All over the 
middle and southern states the spear-shaped 
battalia, multitudinous, curving, flaunting 
— long, glossy, dark-green plumes for the 
great horseman, earth. I hear the cheery 
notes of my old acquaintance Tommy quail ; 
but too late for the whip-poor-will, (though 
I heard one solitary lingerer night before 
last). I watch the broad majestic flight of a 
125 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

turkey-buzzard, sometimes high up, some- 
times low enough to see the lines of his form, 
even his spread quills, in relief against the 
sky. Once or twice lately I have seen an 
eagle here at early candle-light flying low. 



MIRACLES 

Why, who makes much of a miracle ? 
As to me I know of nothing else but miracles, 
Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan, 
Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses 

toward the sky, 
Or wade with naked feet along the beach 

just in the edge of the water, 
Or stand under trees in the woods, 
Or talk by day with any one I love, or sleep 

in the bed at night with any one I 

love, 
Or sit at table at dinner with the rest, 
Or look at strangers opposite me riding in 

the car, 
Or watch honey-bees busy around the hive 

of a summer forenoon, 
Or animals feeding in the fields, 
Or birds, or the wonderfulness of insects in 

the air, 

127 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

Or the wonderfulness of the sundown, or of 

stars shining so quiet and bright, 
Or the exquisite delicate thin curve of the 

new moon in spring; 
These with the rest, one and all, are to* me 

miracles, 
The whole referring, yet each distinct and 

in its place. 

To me every hour of the light and dark is a 

miracle, 
Every cubic inch of space is a miracle, 
Every square yard of the surface of the earth 

is spread with the same, 
Every foot of the interior swarms with the 
same. 

To me the sea is a continual miracle, 
The fishes that swim — the rocks — the 

motion of the waves — the ships 

with men in them. 
What stranger miracles are there ? 



THREE OF US 

July 14. — My two kingfishers still haunt 
the pond. In the bright sun and breeze and 
perfect temperature of to-day, noon, I am 
sitting here by one of the gurgling brooks, 
dipping a French water-pen in the limpid 
crystal, and using it to write these lines, 
again watching the feather'd twain, as they 
fly and sport athwart the water, so close, 
almost touching into its surface. Indeed 
there seem to be three of us. For nearly 
an hour I indolently look and join them 
while they dart and turn and take their airy 
gambols, sometimes far up the creek disap- 
pearing for a few moments, and then surely 
returning again, and performing most of 
their flight within sight of me, as if they 
knew I appreciated and absorb'd their 
vitality, spirituality, faithfulness, and the 
rapid, vanishing, delicate lines of moving 
129 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

yet quiet electricity they draw for me across 
the spread of the grass, the trees, and the 
blue sky. While the brook babbles, babbles, 
and the shadows of the boughs dapple in 
the sunshine around me, and the cool west- 
by-nor'-west wind faintly soughs in the 
thick bushes and tree tops. 

Among the objects of beauty and interest 
now beginning to appear quite plentifully 
in this secluded spot, I notice the humming- 
bird, the dragon-fly with its wings of slate- 
color'd gauze, and many varieties of beauti- 
ful and plain butterflies, idly flapping among 
the plants and wild posies. The mullein 
has shot up out of its nest of broad leaves, 
to a tall stalk towering sometimes five or 
six feet high, now studded with knobs of 
golden blossoms. The milk-weed, (I see a 
great gorgeous creature of gamboge and 
black lighting on one as I write,) is in 
flower, with its delicate red fringe; and there 
are profuse clusters of a feathery blossom 
waving in the wind on taper stems. I see 
130 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

lots of these and much else in every direc- 
tion, as I saunter or sit. For the last half 
hour a bird has persistently kept up a 
simple, sweet, melodious song, from the 
bushes. (I have a positive conviction that 
some of these birds sing, and others fly and 
flirt about here for my special benefit.) 



A child said What is the grass ? fetching it 

to me with full hands; 
How could I answer the child? I do not 

know what it is any more than he. 

I guess it must be the flag of my disposi- 
tion, out of hopeful green stuff 
woven. 

Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord, 
A scented gift and remembrancer design- 
edly dropt, 
Bearing the owner's name someway in the 
corners, that we may see and remark, 
and say Whose ? 

Or I guess the grass is itself a child, the pro- 
duced babe of the vegetation. 

Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic, 
And it means, Sprouting alike in broad 
zones and narrow zones, 
132 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

Growing among black folks as among white, 
Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I 

give them the same, I receive them 

the same. 

And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut 
hair of graves. 

Tenderly will I use you curling grass, 

It may be you transpire from the breasts 

of young men, 
It may be if I had known them I would 

have loved them, 
It may be you are from old people, or from 

offspring taken soon out of their 

mothers' laps, 
And here you are the mothers' laps. 

This grass is very dark to be from the white 

heads of old mothers, 
Darker than the colorless beards of old men, 
Dark to come from under the faint red roofs 

of mouths. 

133 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

I perceive after all so many uttering 

tongues, 
And I perceive they do not come from the 
roofs of mouths for nothing. 

1 wish I could translate the hints about the 

dead young men and women, 
And the hints about old men and mothers, 
and the offspring taken soon out of 
their laps. 

What do you think has become of the 

young and old men ? 
And what do you think has become of the 

women and children ? 

They are alive and well somewhere, 

The smallest sprout shows there is really no 

death, 
And if ever there was it led forward life, 

and does not wait at the end to 

arrest it, 
And ceas'd the moment life appear'd. 
134 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

All goes onward and outward, nothing 

collapses, 
And to die is different from what any one 

supposed, and luckier. 

Song of Myself. 



A JULY AFTERNOON BY THE POND 

The fervent heat, but so much more en- 
durable in this pure air — the white and 
pink pond-blossoms, with great heart- 
shaped leaves; the glassy waters of the 
creek, the banks, with dense bushery, and 
the picturesque beeches and shade and turf; 
the tremulous, reedy call of some bird from 
recesses, breaking the warm, indolent, half- 
voluptuous silence; an occasional wasp, 
hornet, honey-bee or bumble (they hover 
near my hands or face, yet annoy me not, 
nor I them, as they appear to examine, find 
nothing, and away they go) — the vast 
space of the sky overhead so clear, and the 
buzzard up there sailing his slow whirl in 
majestic spirals and discs; just over the 
surface of the pond, two large slate-color'd 
dragon-flies, with wings of lace, circling and 
darting and occasionally balancing them- 
136 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

selves quite still, their wings quivering all 
the time, (are they not showing off for my 
amusement?) — the pond itself, with the 
sword-shaped calamus; the water snakes — 
occasionally a flitting blackbird, with red 
dabs on his shoulders, as he darts slantingly 
by — the sounds that bring out the soli- 
tude, warmth, light and shade — the quawk 
of some pond duck — (the crickets and 
grasshoppers are mute in the noon heat, 
but I hear the song of the first cicadas;) — 
then at some distance the rattle and whirr 
of a reaping machine as the horses draw 
it on a rapid walk through a rye field on 
the opposite side of the creek — (what was 
the yellow or light-bfown bird, large as a 
young hen, with short neck and long- 
stretch'd legs I just saw, in flapping and 
awkward flight over there through the 
trees?) — the prevailing delicate, yet pal- 
pable, spicy, grassy, clovery perfume to 
my nostrils; and over all, encircling all, to 
my sight and soul, the free space of the sky, 
137 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

transparent and blue — and hovering there 
in the west, a mass of white-gray fleecy 
clouds the sailors call "shoals of mackerel' ' 
— the sky, with silver swirls like locks of 
toss'd hair, spreading, expanding — a vast 
voiceless, formless simulacrum — yet may- 
be the most real reality and formulator of 
everything — who knows ? 



I think I could turn and live with animals, 
they are so placid and self-contain'd, 
I stand and look at them long and long. 

They do not sweat and whine about their 

condition, 
They do not He awake in the dark and weep 

for their sins, 
They do not make me sick discussing their 

duty to God, 
Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented 

with the mania of owning things, 
Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind 

that lived thousands of years ago, 
Not one is respectable or unhappy over the 

whole earth. 

So they show their relations to me and I 

accept them, 
They bring me tokens of myself, they evince 

them plainly in their possession. 

139 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

I wonder where they get those tokens, 
Did I pass that way huge times ago and 

negligently drop them? 
Myself moving forward then and now and 

forever, 
Gathering and showing more always and 

with velocity, 
Infinite and omnigenous, and the like of 

these among them, 
Not too exclusive toward the reachers of 

my remembrancers, 
Picking out here one that I love, and now 

go with him on brotherly terms. 

A gigantic beauty of a stallion, fresh and 

responsive to my caresses, 
Head high in the forehead, wide between 

the ears, 
Limbs glossy and supple, tail dusting the 

ground, 
Eyes full of sparkling wickedness, ears 

finely cut, flexibly moving. 



140 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

His nostrils dilate as my heels embrace him, 

His well-built limbs tremble with pleasure 

as we race around and return. 

I but use you a minute, then I resign you, 

stallion, 
Why do I need your paces when I myself 

out-gallop them ? 
Even as I stand or sit passing faster than 

you. 

Song of Myself. 



ONE OF THE HUMAN KINKS 

How is it that in all the serenity and lone- 
someness of solitude, away off here amid 
the hush of the forest, alone, or as I have 
found in prairie wilds, or mountain stillness, 
one is never entirely without the instinct 
of looking around, (I never am, and others 
tell me the same of themselves, confiden- 
tially,) for somebody to appear, or start up 
out of the earth, or from behind some tree 
or rock? Is it a lingering, inherited remains 
of man's primitive wariness, from the wild 
animals? or from his savage ancestry far 
back? It is not at all nervousness or fear. 
Seems as if something unknown were pos- 
sibly lurking in those bushes, or solitary 
places. Nay, it is quite certain there is — 
some vital unseen presence. 



142 



COLORS — A CONTRAST 

Such a play of colors and lights, different 
seasons, different hours of the day — the 
lines of the far horizon where the faint- 
tinged edge of the landscape loses itself in 
the sky. As I slowly hobble up the lane 
toward day-close, an incomparable sunset 
shooting in molten sapphire and gold, shaft 
after shaft, through the ranks of the long- 
leaved corn, between me and the west. 

Another day. — The rich dark green of the 
tulip-trees and the oaks, the gray of the 
swamp-willows, the dull hues of the syca- 
mores and black-walnuts, the emerald of 
the cedars (after rain), and the light yellow 
of the beeches. 



143 



Give me the splendid silent sun with all 

his beams full-dazzling, 
Give me juicy autumnal fruit ripe and red 

from the orchard, 
Give me a field where the unmow'd grass 

grows, 
Give me an arbor, give me the trellis'd 

grape, 
Give me fresh corn and wheat, give me 

serene-moving animals teaching con- 
tent, 
Give me nights perfectly quiet as on high 

plateaus west of the Mississippi, and 

I looking up at the stars, 
Give me odorous at sunrise a garden of 

beautiful flowers where I can walk 

undisturb'd, 
Give me for marriage a sweet-breath'd 

woman of whom I should never 

tire, 
Give me a perfect child, give me away aside 
144 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

from the noise of the world a rural 
domestic life, 

Give me to warble spontaneous songs re- 
cluse by myself, for my own ears 
only, 

Give me solitude, give me Nature, give me 
again Nature your primal sanities! 
Drum-Taps. 



STRAW-COLOR'D AND OTHER 
PSYCHES 

August 4. — A pretty sight! Where I sit 
in the shade — a warm day, the sun shin- 
ing from cloudless skies, the forenoon well 
advanc'd — I look over a ten-acre field of 
luxuriant clover-hay, (the second crop) — 
the livid-ripe red blossoms and dabs of 
August brown thickly spotting the prevail- 
ing dark-green. Over all flutter myriads of 
light-yellow butterflies, mostly skimming 
along the surface, dipping and oscillating, 
giving a curious animation to the scene. 
The beautiful, spiritual insects! straw- 
color'd Psyches! Occasionally one of them 
leaves his mates, and mounts, perhaps 
spirally, perhaps in a straight line in the 
air, fluttering up, up, till literally out of 
sight. In the lane as I came along just now 
I noticed one spot, ten feet square or so, 
146 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

where more than a hundred had collected, 
holding a revel, a gyration-dance, or butter- 
fly good-time, winding and circling, down 
and across, but always keeping within the 
limits. The little creatures have come out 
all of a sudden the last few days, and are 
now very plentiful. As I sit outdoors, or 
walk, I hardly look around without some- 
where seeing two (always two) fluttering 
through the air in amorous dalliance. Then 
their inimitable color, their fragility, pecul- 
iar motion — and that strange, frequent 
way of one leaving the crowd and mount- 
ing up, up in the free ether, and apparently 
never returning. As I look over the field, 
these yellow-wings everywhere mildly 
sparkling, many snowy blossoms of the 
wild carrot gracefully bending on their tall 
and taper stems — while for sounds, the 
distant guttural screech of a flock of guinqa- 
hens comes shrilly yet somehow musically 
to my ears. And now a faint growl of heat- 
thunder in the north — and ever the low 
147 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

rising and falling wind-purr from the tops of 
the maples and willows. 

August 20. — Butterflies and butterflies, 
(taking the place of the bumble-bees of three 
months since, who have quite disappear'd,) 
continue to flit to and fro, all sorts, white, 
yellow, brown, purple — now and then 
some gorgeous fellow flashing lazily by on 
wings like artists' palettes dabb'd with 
every color. Over the breast of the pond I 
notice many white ones, crossing, pursuing 
their idle capricious flight. Near where I sit 
grows a tall-stemm'd weed topt with a pro- 
fusion of rich scarlet blossoms, on which 
the snowy insects alight and dally, some- 
times four or five of them at a time. By- 
and-by a humming-bird visits the same, 
and I watch him coming and going, daintily 
balancing and shimmering about. These 
white butterflies give new beautiful contrasts 
to the pure greens of the August foliage, (we 
have had some copious rains lately,) and 
over the glistening bronze of the pond-sur- 
148 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

face. You can tame even such insects; I 
have one big and handsome moth down 
here, knows and comes to me, likes me to 
hold him up on my extended hand. 

Another Day, later. — A grand twelve- 
acre field of ripe cabbages with their pre- 
vailing hue of malachite green, and floating- 
flying over and among them in all directions 
myriads of these same white butterflies. 
As I came up the lane to-day I saw a liv- 
ing globe of the same, two or three feet 
in diameter, many scores clustered together 
and rolling along in the air, adhering to 
their ball-shape, six or eight feet above the 
ground. 



WITH HUSKY-HAUGHTY LIPS, SEA ! 

With husky-haughty lips, O sea! 

Where day and night I wend thy surf-beat 

shore, 
Imaging to my sense thy varied strange 

suggestions, 
(I see and plainly list thy talk and confer- 
ence here,) 
Thy troops of white-maned racers racing 

to the goal, 
Thy ample, smiling face, dash'd with the 

sparkling dimples of the sun, 
Thy brooding scowl and murk — thy un- 

loos'd hurricanes, 
Thy unsubduedness, caprices, wilfulness; 
Great as thou art above the rest, thy many 

tears — a lack from all eternity in 

thy content, 
(Naught but the greatest struggles, wrongs, 

defeats, could make thee greatest — 

no less could make thee,) 
ISO 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

Thy lonely state — something thou ever 
seek'st and seek'st, yet never gain'st, 

Surely some right withheld — some voice, 
in huge monotonous rage, of free- 
dom-lover pent, 

Some vast heart, like a planet's, chain'd 
and chafing in those breakers, 

By lengthened swell, and spasm, and pant- 
ing breath, 

And rhythmic rasping of thy sands and 
waves, 

And serpent hiss, and savage peals of 
laughter, 

And undertones of distant lion roar, 

(Sounding, appealing to the sky's deaf ear 
— but now, rapport for once, 

A phantom in the night thy confidant for 
once,) 

The first and last confession of the globe, 

Outsurging, muttering from thy soul's 
abysms, 

The tale of cosmic elemental passion, 

Thou tellest to a kindred soul. 



SEA-SHORE FANCIES 

Even as a boy, I had the fancy, the wish, 
to write a piece, perhaps a poem, about the 
sea-shore — that suggesting, dividing line, 
contact, junction, the solid marrying the 
liquid — that curious, lurking something, 
(as doubtless every objective form finally 
becomes to the subjective spirit,) which 
means far more than its mere first sight, 
grand as that is — blending the real and 
ideal, and each made portion of the other. 
Hours, days, in my Long Island youth and 
early manhood, I haunted the shores of 
Rockaway or Coney island, or away east 
to the Hamptons or Montauk. Once, at 
the latter place, (by the old lighthouse, 
nothing but sea-tossings in sight in every 
direction as far as the eye could reach,) I 
remember well, I felt that I must one day 
write a book expressing this liquid, mystic 
152 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

theme. Afterward, I recollect, how it came 
to me that instead of any special lyrical 
or epical or literary attempt, the sea-shore 
should be an invisible influence, a pervading 
gauge and tally for me, in my composition. 
(Let me give a hint here to young writers. 
I am not sure but I have unwittingly fol- 
low'd out the same rule with other powers 
besides sea and shores — avoiding them, in 
the way of any dead set at poetizing them, 
as too big for formal handling — quite sat- 
isfied if I could indirectly show that we have 
met and fused, even if only once, but enough 
— that we have really absorb'd each other 
and understand each other.) 

There is a dream, a picture, that for years 
at intervals, (sometimes quite long ones, 
but surely again, in time,) has come noise- 
lessly up before me, and I really believe, 
fiction as it is, has enter'd largely into my 
practical life — certainly into my writings, 
and shaped and color 'd them. It is nothing 
more or less than a stretch of interminable 
153 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

white-brown sand, hard and smooth and 
broad, with the ocean perpetually, grandly, 
rolling in upon it, with slow-measured 
sweep, with rustle and hiss and foam, and 
many a thump as of low bass drums. This 
scene, this picture, I say, has risen before 
me at times for years. Sometimes I wake 
at night and can hear and see it plainly. 



ON THE BEACH AT NIGHT 

On the beach at night, 
Stands a child with her father, 
Watching the east, the autumn sky. 

Up through the darkness, 

While ravening clouds, the burial clouds, 

in black masses spreading, 
Lower sullen and fast athwart and down 

the sky, 
Amid a transparent clear belt of ether yet 

left in the east, 
Ascends large and calm the lord-star Jupiter, 
And nigh at hand, only a very little above, 
Swim the delicate sisters the Pleiades. 

From the beach the child holding the hand 

of her father, 
Those burial-clouds that lower victorious 

soon to devour all, 
Watching, silently weeps. 
i55 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

Weep not, child, 

Weep not, my darling, 

With these kisses let me remove your tears, 

The ravening clouds shall not long be vic- 
torious, 

They shall not long possess the sky, they 
devour the stars only in apparition, 

Jupiter shall emerge, be patient, watch 
again another night, the Pleiades 
shall emerge, 

They are immortal, all those stars both 
silvery and golden shall shine out 
again, 

The great stars and the little ones shall 
shine out again, they endure, 

The vast immortal suns and the long- 
enduring pensive moons shall again 
shine. 

Then dearest child mournest thou only for 

Jupiter ? 
Considerest thou alone the burial of the 

stars ? 

156 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

Something there is, 

(With my lips soothing thee, adding I 

whisper, 
I give thee the first suggestion, the problem 

and indirection,) 
Something there is more immortal even than 

the stars, 
(Many the burials, many the days and 

nights, passing away,) 
Something that shall endure longer even 

than lustrous Jupiter, 
Longer than sun or any revolving satellite, 
Or the radiant sisters the Pleiades. 



A WINTER DAY ON THE SEA-BEACH 

One bright December mid-day lately I 
spent down on the New Jersey sea-shore, 
reaching it by a little more than an hour's 
railroad trip over the old Camden and 
Atlantic. . . . Five or six miles at the last, 
our track enter'd a broad region of salt 
grass meadows, intersected by lagoons, and 
cut up everywhere by watery runs. The 
sedgy perfume, delightful to my nostrils, 
reminded me of "the mash" and south bay 
of my native island. I could have journey 'd 
contentedly till night through these flat 
and odorous sea-prairies. From half -past 
n till 2 I was nearly all the time along the 
beach, or in sight of the ocean, listening to 
its hoarse murmur, and inhaling the bracing 
and welcome breezes. First, a rapid five- 
mile drive over the hard sand — our car- 
riage wheels hardly made dents in it. Then 

158 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

after dinner (as there were nearly two hours 
to spare) I walk'd off in another direction, 
(hardly met or saw a person,) and taking 
possession of what appear'd to have been 
the reception-room of an old bath-house 
range, had a broad expanse of view all 
to myself — quaint, refreshing, unimpeded 
— a dry area of sedge and Indian grass 
immediately before and around me — 
space, simple, unornamented space. Dis- 
tant vessels, and the far-off, just visible, 
trailing smoke of an inward bound steamer; 
more plainly, ships, brigs, schooners, in 
sight, most of them with every sail set to 
the firm and steady wind. 

The attractions, fascinations there are in 
sea and shore! How one dwells on their 
simplicity, even vacuity! What is it in us, 
arous'd by those indirections and direc- 
tions? That spread of waves and gray- 
white beach, salt, monotonous, senseless — 
such an entire absence of art, books, talk, 
elegance — so indescribably comforting, 
159 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

even this winter day — grim, yet so deli- 
cate-looking, so spiritual — striking emo- 
tional, impalpable depths, subtler than all 
the poems, paintings, music, I have ever 
read, seen, heard. (Yet let me be fair, per- 
haps it is because I have read those poems 
and heard that music.) 



ON THE BEACH AT NIGHT ALONE 

On the beach at night alone, 

As the old mother sways her to and fro 

singing her husky song, 
As I watch the bright stars shining, I think 

a thought of the clef of the universes 

and of the future. 

A vast similitude interlocks all, 

All spheres, grown, ungrown, small, large, 
suns, moons, planets, 

All distances of place however wide, 

All distances of time, all inanimate forms, 

All souls, all living bodies though they 
be ever so different, or in different 
worlds, 

All gaseous, watery, vegetable, mineral 
processes, the fishes, the brutes, 

All nations, colors, barbarisms, civiliza- 
tions, languages, 
161 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

All identities that have existed or may exist 

on this globe, or any globe, 
All lives and deaths, all of the past, present, 

future, 
This vast similitude spans them, and always 

has spann'd, 
And shall forever span them and compactly 

hold and enclose them. 



MULLEINS AND MULLEINS 

Large, placid mulleins, as summer ad- 
vances, velvety in texture, of a light green- 
ish-drab color, growing everywhere in the 
fields — at first earth's big rosettes in their 
broad-leav'd low cluster-plants, eight, ten, 
twenty leaves to a plant — plentiful on the 
fallow twenty-acre lot, at the end of the 
lane, and especially by the ridge-sides of the 
fences — then close to the ground, but soon 
springing up — leaves as broad as my 
hand, and the lower ones twice as long — 
so fresh and dewy in the morning — stalks 
now four or five, even seven or eight feet 
high. The farmers, I find, think the mullein 
a mean unworthy weed, but I have grown 
to a fondness for it. Every object has its 
lesson, enclosing the suggestion of every- 
thing else — and lately I sometimes think 
all is concentrated for me in these hardy, 
163 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

yellow-flower 'd weeds. As I come down the 
lane early in the morning, I pause before 
their soft wool-like fleece and stem and 
broad leaves, glittering with countless dia- 
monds. Annually for three summers now, 
they and I have silently return'd together; 
at such long intervals I stand or sit among 
them, musing — and woven with the rest, 
of so many hours and moods of partial 
rehabilitation — of my sane or sick spirit, 
here as near at peace as it can be. 



Oxen that rattle the yoke and chain or halt 
in the leafy shade, what is that you 
express in your eyes ? 

It seems to me more than all the print I 
have read in my life. 

My tread scares the wood-drake and wood- 
duck on my distant and day-long 
ramble, 

They rise together, they slowly circle 
around. 

I believe in those wing'd purposes, 

And acknowledge red, yellow, white, play- 
ing within me, 

And consider green and violet and the 
tufted crown intentional, 

And do not call the tortoise unworthy be- 
cause she is not something else, 

165 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

And the jay in the woods never studied 
the gamut, yet trills pretty well to 
me, 

And the look of the bay mare shames 
silliness out of me. 

Song of Myself. 



TO THE SPRING AND BROOK 

So, still sauntering on, to the spring under 
the willows — musical as soft clinking 
glasses — pouring a sizeable stream, thick 
as my neck, pure and clear, out from its 
vent where the bank arches over like a 
great brown shaggy eyebrow or mouth- 
roof — gurgling, gurgling ceaselessly — 
meaning, saying something, of course (if 
one could only translate it) — always gur- 
gling there, the whole year through — 
never giving out — oceans of mint, black- 
berries in summer — choice of light and 
shade — just the place for my July sun- 
baths and water-baths too — but mainly 
the inimitable soft sound-gurgles of it, as I 
sit there hot afternoons. How they and all 
grow into me, day after day — everything 
in keeping — the wild, just-palpable per- 
fume, and the dappled leaf-shadows, and 
167 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

all the natural-medicinal, elemental-moral 
influences of the spot. 

Babble on, O brook, with that utterance 
of thine! I too will express what I have 
gather'd in my days and progress, native, 
subterranean, past — and now thee. Spin 
and wind thy way — I with thee, a little 
while, at any rate. As I haunt thee so often, 
season by season, thou knowest, reckest 
not me, (yet why be so certain? who can 
tell ?) — but I will learn from thee, and 
dwell on thee — receive, copy, print from 
thee. 



There is something that comes to one now 
and perpetually, 

It is not what is printed, preach'd, discussed, 
it eludes discussion and print, 

It is not to be put in a book, it is not in this 
book, 

It is for you whoever you are, it is no far- 
ther from you than your hearing 
and sight are from you, 

It is hinted by nearest, commonest, readi- 
est, it is ever provoked by them. 

You may read in many languages, yet read 
nothing about it, 

You may read the President's message and 
read nothing about it there, 

Nothing in the reports from the State de- 
partment or Treasury department, 
or in the daily papers or weekly 
papers, 

169 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

Or in the census or revenue returns, prices 
current, or any accounts of stock. 

The sun and stars that float in the open 
air, 

The apple-shaped earth and we upon it, 
surely the drift of them is something 
grand, 

I do not know what it is except that it is 
grand, and that it is happiness, 

And that the enclosing purport of us here 
is not a speculation or bon-mot or 
reconnoissance, 

And that it is not something which by luck 
may turn out well for us, and with- 
out luck must be a failure for us, 

And not something which may yet be re- 
tracted in a certain contingency. 

The light and shade, the curious sense of 
body and identity, the greed that 
with perfect complaisance devours 
all things, 

170 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

The endless pride and outstretching of man, 

unspeakable joys and sorrows, 
The wonder every one sees in every one 

else he sees, and the wonders that 

fill each minute of time forever, 
What have you reckon'd them for, cam- 

erado ? 
Have you reckon'd them for your trade or 

farm- work? or for the profits of your 

store ? 
Or to achieve yourself a position? or to fill 

a gentleman's leisure, or a lady's 

leisure ? 

Have you reckon'd that the landscape took 
substance and form that it might be 
painted in a picture ? 

Or men and women that they might be 
written of, and songs sung ? 

Or the attraction of gravity, and the great 
laws and harmonious combinations 
and the fluids of the air, as subjects 
for the savans ? 
171 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

Or the brown land and the blue sea for maps 

and charts ? 
Or the stars to be put in constellations and 

named fancy names ? 
Or that the growth of seeds is for agricultural 

tables, or agriculture itself ? 

Old institutions, these arts, libraries, leg- 
ends, collections, and the practice 
handed along in manufactures, will 
we rate them so high ? 

Will we rate our cash and business high? 
I have no objection, 

I rate them as high as the highest — then 
a child born of a woman and man 
I rate beyond all rate. 

We thought our Union grand, and our Con- 
stitution grand, 

I do not say they are not grand and good, 
for they are, 

I am this day just as much in love with 
them as you, 

172 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

Then I am in love with You, and with all 
my fellows upon the earth. 

We consider bibles and religions divine — 

I do not say they are not divine, 
I say they have all grown out of you, and 

may grow out of you still, 
It is not they who give the life, it is you 

who give the life, 
Leaves are not more shed from the trees, 

or trees from the earth, than they 

are shed out of you. 

A Song for Occupations. 



MATURE SUMMER DAYS AND NIGHTS 

August 4. — Forenoon — as I sit under the 
willow shade, (have retreated down in the 
country again,) a little bird is leisurely 
dousing and flirting himself amid the brook 
almost within reach of me. He evidently 
fears me not — takes me for some con- 
comitant of the neighboring earthy banks, 
free bushery and wild weeds. 6 p. m. — 
The last three days have been perfect 
ones for the season, (four nights ago copious 
rains, with vehement thunder and light- 
ning). I write this sitting by the creek 
watching my two kingfishers at their sun- 
down sport. The strong, beautiful, joyous 
creatures ! Their wings glisten in the slanted 
sunbeams as they circle and circle around, 
occasionally dipping and dashing the water, 
and making long stretches up and down 
the creek. Wherever I go over fields, 
174 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

through lanes, in by-places, blooms the 
white-flowering wild-carrot, its delicate pat 
of snow-flakes crowning its slender stem, 
gracefully oscillating in the breeze. 



THE COMMONPLACE 

The commonplace I sing; 

How cheap is health! how cheap nobility! 

Abstinence, no falsehood, no gluttony, lust; 

The open air I sing, freedom, toleration, 

(Take here the mainest lesson — less from 
books — less from the schools,) 

The common day and night — the common 
earth and waters, 

Your farm — your work, trade, occupa- 
tion, 

The democratic wisdom underneath, like 
solid ground for all. 



176 



LOCUSTS AND KATYDIDS 

August 22. — Reedy monotones of locust, 
or sounds of katydid — I hear the latter 
at night, and the other both day and night. 
I thought the morning and evening warble 
of birds delightful; but I find I can listen to 
these strange insects with just as much pleas- 
ure. A single locust is now heard near noon 
from a tree two hundred feet off, as I write 
— a long whirring, continued, quite loud 
noise graded in distinct whirls, or swinging 
circles, increasing in strength and rapidity 
up to a certain point, and then a fluttering, 
quietly tapering fall. Each strain is con- 
tinued from one to two minutes. The locust- 
song is very appropriate to the scene — 
gushes, has meaning, is masculine, is like 
some fine old wine, not sweet, but far 
better than sweet. 

177 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

But the katydid — how shall I describe 
its piquant utterances? One sings from a 
willow-tree just outside my open bedroom 
window, twenty yards distant; every clear 
night for a fortnight past has sooth'd me to 
sleep. I rode through a piece of woods for a 
hundred rods the other evening, and heard 
the katydids by myriads — very curious for 
once; but I like better my single neighbor 
on the tree. 

Let me say more about the song of the 
locust, even to repetition; a long, chromatic, 
tremulous crescendo, like a brass disk whirl- 
ing round and round, emitting wave after 
wave of notes, beginning with a certain 
moderate beat or measure, rapidly increas- 
ing in speed and emphasis, reaching a point 
of great energy and significance, and then 
quickly and gracefully dropping down and 
out. Not the melody of the singing-bird — far 
from it; the common musician might think 
without melody, but surely having to the 
finer ear a harmony of its own; monotonous 
178 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

— but what a swing there is in that brassy 
drone, round and round, cymballine — or 
like the whirling of brass quoits. 



A SUN-BATH — NAKEDNESS 

Sunday, August 2j. — Another day quite 
free from mark'd prostration and pain. It 
seems indeed as if peace and nutriment 
from heaven subtly filter into me as I slowly 
hobble down these country lanes and across 
fields, in the good air — as I sit here in soli- 
tude with Nature — open, voiceless, mystic, 
far removed, yet palpable, eloquent Nature. 
I merge myself in the scene, in the perfect 
day. Hovering over the clear brook-water, 
I am sooth'd by its soft gurgle in one place, 
and the hoarser murmurs of its three-foot 
fall in another. Come, ye disconsolate, in 
whom any latent eligibility is left — come 
get the sure virtues of creek-shore, and wood 
and field. Two months (July and August, 
'77,) have I absorb'd them, and they begin 
to make a new man of me. Every day, 
seclusion — every day at least two or three 
180 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

hours of freedom, bathing, no talk, no bonds, 
no dress, no books, no manners. 

Shall I tell you, reader, to what I attri- 
bute my already much-restored health ? 
That I have been almost two years, off and 
on, without drugs and medicines, and daily 
in the open air. Last summer I found 
a particularly secluded little dell off one 
side by my creek, originally a large dug-out 
marl-pit, now abandon'd, fill'd, with bushes, 
trees, grass, a group of willows, a straggling 
bank, and a spring of delicious water run- 
ning right through the middle of it, with 
two or three little cascades. Here I retreated 
every hot day, and follow it up this sum- 
mer. Here I realize the meaning of that old 
fellow who said he was seldom less alone 
than when alone. Never before did I get 
so close to Nature; never before did she 
come so close to me. By old habit, I pen- 
cill'd down from time to time, almost 
automatically, moods, sights, hours, tints 
and outlines, on the spot. Let me specially 
181 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

record the satisfaction of this current fore- 
noon, so serene and primitive, so conven- 
tionally exceptional, natural. 

An hour or so after breakfast, I wended 
my way down to the recesses of the afore- 
said dell, which I and certain thrushes, cat- 
birds, &c, had all to ourselves. A light 
south-west wind was blowing through the 
tree- tops. It was just the place and time 
for my Adamic air-bath and flesh-brushing 
from head to foot. So hanging clothes on 
a rail near by, keeping old broadbrim straw 
on head and easy shoes on feet, havn't I 
had a good time the last two hours! First 
with the stiff-elastic bristles rasping arms, 
breast, sides, till they turn'd scarlet — then 
partially bathing in the clear waters of the 
running brook — taking everything very 
leisurely, with many rests and pauses — 
stepping about barefooted every few min- 
utes now and then in some neighboring 
black ooze, for unctuous mud-bath to my 
feet — a brief second and third rinsing in 
182 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

the crystal running waters — rubbing with 
the fragrant towel — slow negligent prome- 
nades on the turf up and down in the sun, 
varied with occasional rests, and further 
frictions of the bristle-brush — sometimes 
carrying my portable chair with me from 
place to place, as my range is quite exten- 
sive here, nearly a hundred rods, feeling 
quite secure from intrusion, (and that in- 
deed I am not at all nervous about, if it 
accidentally happens). 

As I walk'd slowly over the grass, the 
sun shone out enough to show the shadow 
moving with me. Somehow I seem'd to get 
identity with each and every thing around 
me, in its condition. Nature was naked, 
and I was also. It was too lazy, soothing, 
and joyous-equable to speculate about. 
Yet I might have thought somehow in this 
vein: Perhaps the inner never-lost rapport 
we hold with earth, light, air, trees, &c, 
is not to be realized through eyes and mind 
only, but through the whole corporeal body, 
183 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

which I will not have blinded or bandaged 
any more than the eyes. Sweet, sane, still 
Nakedness in Nature ! — ah if poor, sick, 
prurient humanity in cities might really 
know you once more ! Is not nakedness then 
indecent ? No, not inherently. It is your 
thought, your sophistication, your fear, 
your respectability, that is indecent. There 
come moods when these clothes of ours are 
not only too irksome to wear, but are them- 
selves indecent. Perhaps indeed he or she 
to whom the free exhilarating extasy of 
nakedness in Nature has never been eligible 
(and how many thousands there are!) has 
not really known what purity is — nor 
what faith or art or health really is. (Prob- 
ably the whole curriculum of first-class 
philosophy, beauty, heroism, form, illus- 
trated by the old Hellenic race — the high- 
est height and deepest depth known to 
civilization in those departments — came 
from their natural and religious idea of 
Nakedness.) 

184 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

Many such hours, from time to time, the 
last two summers — I attribute my partial 
rehabilitation largely to them. Some good 
people may think it a feeble or half-crack'd 
way of spending one's time and thinking. 
May-be it is. 



SUPPLEMENT HOURS 

Sane, random, negligent hours, 

Sane, easy, culminating hours, 

After the flush, the Indian summer, of my 
life, 

Away from Books — away from Art — the 
lesson learn'd, pass'd o'er. 

Soothing, bathing, merging all — the sane, 
magnetic, 

Now for the day and night themselves — 
the open air, 

Now for the fields, the seasons, insects, 
trees — the rain and snow, 

Where wild bees flitting hum, 

Or August mulleins grow, or winter's snow- 
flakes fall, 

Or stars in the skies roll round — 

The silent sun and stars. 



186 



WILD FLOWERS 

This has been and is yet a great season for 
wild flowers; oceans of them line the roads 
through the woods, border the edges of the 
water-runlets, grow all along the old fences, 
and are scatter'd in profusion over the fields. 
An eight-petal'd blossom of gold-yellow, 
clear and bright, with a brown tuft in 
the middle, nearly as large as a silver half- 
dollar, is very common; yesterday on a long 
drive I noticed it thickly lining the borders 
of the brooks everywhere. Then there is a 
beautiful weed cover'd with blue flowers, 
(the blue of the old Chinese teacups treas- 
ure by our grand-aunts,) I am continually 
stopping to admire — a little larger than a 
dime, and very plentiful. White, however, 
is the prevailing color. The wild carrot I 
have spoken of; also the fragrant life-ever- 
lasting. But there are all hues and beauties, 

187 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

especially on the frequent tracts of half- 
opened scrub-oak and dwarf cedar here- 
about — wild asters of all colors. Notwith- 
standing the frost-touch the hardy little 
chaps maintain themselves in all their 
bloom. The tree-leaves, too, some of them 
are beginning to turn yellow or drab or dull 
green. The deep wine-color of the sumachs 
and gum-trees is already visible, and the 
straw-color of the dog-wood and beech. 



ENTERING A LONG FARM-LANE 

As every man has his hobby-liking, mine is 
for a real farm-lane fenced by old chestnut- 
rails gray-green with dabs of moss and 
lichen, copious weeds and briers growing 
in spots athwart the heaps of stray-pick'd 
stones at the fence bases — irregular paths 
worn between, and horse and cow tracks — 
all characteristic accompaniments mark- 
ing and scenting the neighborhood in their 
seasons — apple-tree blossoms in forward 
April — pigs, poultry, a field of August 
buckwheat, and in another the long flap- 
ping tassels of maize — and so to the pond, 
the expansion of the creek, the secluded- 
beautiful, with young and old trees, and 
such recesses and vistas. 



189 



HALCYON DAYS 

Not from successful love alone, 

Nor wealth, nor honor'd middle age, nor 

victories of politics or war; 
But as life wanes, and all the turbulent 

passions calm, 
As gorgeous, vapory, silent hues cover the 

evening sky, 
As softness, fulness, rest, suffuse the frame, 

like freshier, balmier air, 
As the days take on a mellower light, and 

the apple at last hangs really fmish'd 

and indolent-ripe on the tree, 
Then for the teeming quietest, happiest 

days of all! 
The brooding and blissful halcyon days! 



190 



DISTANT SOUNDS 

The axe of the wood-cutter, the measured 
thud of a single threshing-flail, the crowing 
of chanticleer in the barn-yard, (with in- 
variable responses from other barn-yards,) 
and the lowing of cattle — but most of all, 
or far or near, the wind — through the high 
tree-tops, or through low bushes, laving 
one's face and hands so gently, this balmy- 
bright noon, the coolest for a long time, 
(Sept. 2) — I will not call it sighing, for to 
me it is always a firm, sane, cheery expres- 
sion, through a monotone, giving many va- 
rieties, or swift or slow, or dense or delicate. 
The wind in the patch of pine woods off 
there — how sibilant. Or at sea, I can im- 
agine it this moment, tossing the waves, 
with spirits of foam flying far, and the free 
whistle, and the scent of the salt — and 
that vast paradox somehow with all its 
191 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

action and restlessness conveying a sense 
of eternal rest. 

Other adjuncts, — But the sun and the 
moon here and these times. As never more 
wonderful by day, the gorgeous orb im- 
perial, so vast, so ardently, lovingly hot — 
so never a more glorious moon of nights, 
especially the last three or four. The great 
planets too — Mars never before so flam- 
ing bright, so flashing-large, with slight 
yellow tinge, (the astronomers say — is it 
true ? — nearer to us than any time the 
past century) — and well up, lord Jupiter, 
(a little while since close by the moon) — 
and in the west, after the sun sinks, volup- 
tuous Venus, now languid and shorn of her 
beams, as if from some divine excess. 



AUTUMN SIDE-BITS 

September 20. — Under an old black oak, 
glossy and green, exhaling aroma — .amid 
a grove the Albic druids might have chosen 
— envelop'd in the warmth and light of 
the noonday sun, and swarms of flitting 
insects — with the harsh cawing of many 
crows a hundred rods away — here I sit in 
solitude, absorbing, enjoying all. The corn, 
stack'd in its cone-shaped stacks, russet- 
color'd and sere — a large field spotted 
thick with scarlet-gold pumpkins — an ad- 
joining one of cabbages, showing well in 
their green and pearl, mottled by much 
light and shade — melon patches, with their 
bulging ovals, and great silver-streak'd, 
ruffled, broad-edged leaves — and many 
an autumn sight and sound beside — the 
distant scream of a flock of guinea-hens — 
and pour'd over all the September breeze, 
193 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

with pensive cadence through the tree 
tops. 

Another Day. — The ground in all direc- 
tions strew'd with debris from a storm. 
Timber creek, as I slowly pace its banks, 
has ebb'd low, and shows reaction from the 
turbulent swell of the late equinoctial. As 
I look around, I take account of stock — 
weeds and shrubs, knolls, paths, occasional 
stumps, some with smooth 'd tops, (several 
I use as seats of rest, from place to place, 
and from one I am now jotting these lines,) 
— frequent wild-flowers, little white, star- 
shaped things, or the cardinal red of the 
lobelia, or the cherry-ball seeds of the 
perennial rose, or the many-threaded vines 
winding up and around trunks of trees. 

October i, 2, and 3. — Down every day in 
the solitude of the creek. A serene autumn 
sun and westerly breeze to-day (3d) as I sit 
here, the water surface prettily moving in 
wind-ripples before me. On a stout old 
beech at the edge, decayed and slanting, 
194 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

almost fallen to the stream, yet with life 
and leaves in its mossy limbs, a gray squir- 
rel, exploring, runs up and down, flirts his 
tail, leaps to the ground, sits on his haunches 
upright as he sees me, (a Darwinian hint?) 
and then races up the tree again. 

October 4. — Cloudy and coolish; signs 
of incipient winter. Yet pleasant here, the 
leaves thick-falling, the ground brown with 
them already; rich coloring, yellows of all 
hues, pale and dark-green, shades from 
lightest to richest red — all set in and toned 
down by the prevailing brown of the earth 
and gray of the sky. So, winter is coming; 
and I yet in my sickness. I sit here amid all 
these fair sights and vital influences, and 
abandon myself to that thought, with its 
wandering trains of speculation. 



For the lands and for these passionate days 

and for myself, 
Now I awhile retire to thee O soil of autumn 

fields, 
Reclining on thy breast, giving myself to 

thee, 
Answering the pulses of thy sane and 

equable heart, 
Tuning a verse for thee. 

O earth that hast no voice, confide to me a 
voice, 

O harvest of my lands — boundless sum- 
mer growths, 

O lavish brown parturient earth — O in- 
finite teeming womb, 

A song to narrate thee. 

Ever upon this stage, 
Is acted God's calm annual drama, 
Gorgeous processions, songs of birds, 
196 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

Sunrise that fullest feeds and freshens most 

the soul, 
The heaving sea, the waves upon the shore, 

the musical, strong waves, 
The woods, the stalwart trees, the slender, 

tapering trees, 
The liliput countless armies of the grass, 
The heat, the showers, the measureless 

pasturages, 
The scenery of the snows, the winds' free 

orchestra, 
The stretching light-hung roof of clouds, 

the clear cerulean and the silvery 

fringes, 
The high dilating stars, the placid beckon- 
ing stars, 
The moving flocks and herds, the plains 

and emerald meadows, 
The shows of all the varied lands and all 

the growths and products. 

The Return of the Heroes. 



THE SKY — DAYS AND NIGHTS — 
HAPPINESS 

October 20. — A clear, crispy day — dry 
and breezy air, full of oxygen. Out of the 
sane, silent, beauteous miracles that en- 
velope and fuse me — trees, water, grass, 
sunlight, and early frost — the one I am 
looking at most to-day is the sky. It has 
that delicate, transparent blue, peculiar to 
autumn, and the only clouds are little or 
larger white ones, giving their still and 
spiritual motion to the great concave. All 
through the earlier day (say from 7 to 11) 
it keeps a pure, yet vivid blue. But as noon 
approaches the color gets lighter, quite gray 
for two or three hours — then still paler for 
a spell, till sun-down — which last I watch 
dazzling through the interstices of a knoll 
of big trees — darts of fire and a gorgeous 
show of light-yellow, liver-color and red, 
198 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

with a vast silver glaze askant on the water 

— the transparent shadows, shafts, sparkle, 
and vivid colors beyond all the paintings 
ever made. 

I don't know what or how, but it seems 
to me mostly owing to these skies, (every 
now and then I think, while I have of course 
seen them every day of my life, I never 
really saw the skies before,) have had this 
autumn some wondrously contented hours 

— may I not say perfectly happy ones ? As 
I have read, Byron just before his death 
told a friend that he had known but three 
happy hours during his whole existence. 
Then there is the old German legend of the 
king's bell, to the same point. While I was 
out there by the wood, that beautiful sun- 
set through the trees, I thought of Byron's 
and the bell story, and the notion started 
in me that I was having a happy hour. 
(Though perhaps my best moments I never 
jot down; when they come I cannot afford 
to break the charm by inditing memoranda. 

199 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

I just abandon myself to the mood, and 
let it float on, carrying me in its placid 
extasy.) 

What is happiness, anyhow? Is this one 
of its hours, or the like of it? — so impal- 
pable — a mere breath, an evanescent tinge ? 
I am not sure — so let me give myself the 
benefit of the doubt. Hast Thou, pellucid, 
in Thy azure depths, medicine for case like 
mine? (Ah, the physical shatter and trou- 
bled spirit of me the last three years.) And 
dost Thou subtly mystically now drip it 
through the air invisibly upon me ? 

Night of October 28. — The heavens un- 
usually transparent — the stars out by 
myriads — the great path of the Milky 
Way, with its branch, only seen of very 
clear nights — Jupiter, setting in the west, 
looks like a huge hap-hazard splash, and 
has a little star for companion. 

Clothed in his white garments, 
Into the round and clear arena slowly entered the 
brahmin, 

200 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

Holding a little child by the hand, 
Like the moon with the planet Jupiter in a cloud- 
less night-sky. 

Old Hindu Poem. 

Early in November. — At its farther end 
the lane already described opens into a 
broad grassy upland field of over twenty 
acres, slightly sloping to the south. Here I 
am accustomed to walk for sky views and 
effects, either morning or sundown. To-day 
from this field my soul is calm'd and ex- 
panded beyond description, the whole fore- 
noon by the clear blue arching over all, 
cloudless, nothing particular, only sky and 
daylight. Their soothing accompaniments, 
autumn leaves, the cool dry air, the faint 
aroma — crows cawing in the distance — 
two great buzzards wheeling gracefully and 
slowly far up there — the occasional mur- 
mur of the wind, sometimes quite gently, 
then threatening through the trees — a 
gang of farm-laborers loading cornstalks 
in a field in sight, and the patient horses 
waiting. 

201 



TO THE SUN-SET BREEZE 

Ah, whispering, something again, unseen, 
Where late this heated day thou enterest 

at my window, door, 
Thou, laving, tempering all, cool-freshing, 

gently vitalizing 
Me, old, alone, sick, weak-down, melted- 

worn with sweat; 
Thou, nestling, folding close and firm yet 

soft, companion better than talk, 

book, art, 
(Thou hast, Nature! elements! utterance 

to my heart beyond the rest — and 

this is of them,) 
So sweet thy primitive taste to breathe 

within — thy soothing fingers on my 

face and hands, 
Thou, messenger-magical strange bringer to 

body and spirit of me, 
(Distances balk'd — occult medicines pene- 
trating me from head to foot,) 
202 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

I feel the sky, the prairies vast — I feel the 
mighty northern lakes, 

I feel the ocean and the forest — somehow 
I feel the globe itself swift-swim- 
ming in space; 

Thou blown from lips so loved, now gone — 
haply from endless store, God-sent, 

(For thou art spiritual, Godly, most of all 
known to my sense,) 

Minister to speak to me, here and now, 
what word has never told, and can- 
not tell, 

Art thou not universal concrete's distilla- 
tion? Law's, all Astronomy's last 
refinement ? 

Hast thou no soul ? Can I not know, iden- 
tify thee ? 



SUNDOWN LIGHTS 

May 6, 5 P.M. — This is the hour for 
strange effects in light and shade — enough 
to make a colorist go delirious — long 
spokes of molten silver sent horizontally 
through the trees (now in their brightest 
tenderest green,) each leaf and branch of 
endless foliage a lit-up miracle, then lying 
all prone on the youthful-ripe, interminable 
grass, and giving the blades not only aggre- 
gate but individual splendor, in ways un- 
known to any other hour. I have particular 
spots where I get these effects in their per- 
fection. One broad splash lies on the water, 
with many a rippling twinkle, offset by 
the rapidly deepening black-green murky- 
transparent shadows behind, and at inter- 
vals all along the banks. These, with great 
shafts of horizontal fire thrown among the 
trees and along the grass as the sun lowers, 
204 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

give effects more and more peculiar, more 
and more superb, unearthly, rich and daz- 
zling. 



SUNDOWN PERFUME — QUAIL-NOTES 
— THE HERMIT-THRUSH 

June igth, 4 to 6*4, P.M. — Sitting alone 
by the creek — solitude here, but the scene 
bright and vivid enough — the sun shin- 
ing, and quite a fresh wind blowing (some 
heavy showers last night,) the grass and 
trees looking their best — the clare-obscure 
of different greens, shadows, half-shadows, 
and the dappling glimpses of the water, 
through recesses — the wild flageolet-note 
of a quail near by — the just-heard fretting 
of some hylas down there in the pond — 
crows cawing in the distance — a drove of 
young hogs rooting in soft ground near the 
oak under which I sit — some come sniffing 
near me, and then scamper away, with 
grunts. And still the clear notes of the quail 
— the quiver of leaf-shadows over the pa- 
per as I write — the sky aloft, with white 
206 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

clouds, and the sun well declining to the 
west — the swift darting of many sand- 
swallows coming and going, their holes in 
a neighboring marl-bank — the odor of the 
cedar and oak, so palpable, as evening 
approaches — perfume, color, the bronze- 
and-gold of nearly ripen'd wheat — clover- 
fields, with honey-scent — the well-up 
maize, with long and rustling leaves — the 
great patches of thriving potatoes, dusky 
green, fleck'd all over with white blossoms 

— the old, warty, venerable oak above me 

— and ever, mix'd with the dual notes of 
the quail, the soughing of the wind through 
some near-by pines. 

As I rise for return, I linger long to a 
delicious song-epilogue (is it the hermit- 
thrush?) from some bushy recess of! there 
in the swamp, repeated leisurely and pen- 
sively over and over again. This, to the 
circle-gambols of the swallows flying by 
dozens in concentric rings in the last rays 
of sunset, like flashes of some airy wheel. 



SONG AT SUNSET 

Splendor of ended day floating and filling 

me, 
Hour prophetic, hour resuming the past, 
Inflating my throat, you divine average, 
You earth and life till the last ray gleams I 

sing. 

Open mouth of my soul uttering gladness, 
Eyes of my soul seeing perfection, 
Natural life of me faithfully praising things, 
Corroborating forever the triumph of 
things. 

Illustrious every one! 

Illustrious what we name space, sphere of 

unnumbered spirits, 
Illustrious the mystery of motion in all 

beings, even the tiniest insect, 
Illustrious the attribute of speech, the 

senses, the body, 
208 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

Illustrious the passing light — illustrious 
the pale reflection on the new moon 
in the western sky, 

Illustrious whatever I see or hear or touch, 
to the last. 

Good in all, 

In the satisfaction and aplomb of animals, 

In the annual return of the seasons, 

In the hilarity of youth, 

In the strength and flush of manhood, 

In the grandeur and exquisiteness of old age, 

In the superb vistas of death. 

Wonderful to depart! 

Wonderful to be here! 

The heart, to jet the, all-alike and innocent 

blood! 
To breathe the air, how delicious! 
To speak — to walk — to seize something 

by the hand ! 
To prepare for sleep, for bed, to look on my 

rose-color'd flesh! 
209 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

To be conscious of my body, so satisfied, so 

large! 
To be this incredible God I am! 
To have gone forth among other Gods, 

these men and women I love. 

Wonderful how I celebrate you and myself! 

How my thoughts play subtly at the spec- 
tacles around! 

How the clouds pass silently overhead! 

How the earth darts on and on! and how 
the sun, moon, stars, dart on and on! 

How the water sports and sings ! (surely it 
is alive !) 

How the trees rise and stand up, with strong 
trunks, with branches and leaves! 

(Surely there is something more in each of 
the trees, some living soul.) 

amazement of things — even the least 

particle ! 
spirituality of things! 
O strain musical flowing through ages and 
210 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

continents, now reaching me and 
America! 
I take your strong chords, intersperse them, 
and cheerfully pass them forward. 

I too carol the sun, usher'd or at noon, or as 

now, setting, 
I too throb to the brain and beauty of the 

earth and of all the growths of the 

earth, 
I too have felt the resistless call of myself. 

As I steam'd down the Mississippi, 

As I wander'd over the prairies, 

As I have lived, as I have look'd through 

my windows my eyes, 
As I went forth in the morning, as I beheld 

the light breaking in the east, 
As I bathed on the beach of the Eastern 

Sea, and again on the beach of the 

Western Sea, 
As I roam'd the streets of inland Chicago, 

whatever streets I have roam'd, 

211 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

Or cities or silent woods, or even amid the 
sights of war, 

Wherever I have been I have charged my- 
self with contentment and triumph. 

I sing to the last the equalities modern or 
old, 

I sing the endless finales of things, 

I say Nature continues, glory continues, 

I praise with electric voice, 

For I do not see one imperfection in the 
universe, 

And I do not see one cause or result lament- 
able at last in the universe. 

setting sun ! though the time has come, 

1 still warble under you, if none else does, 

unmitigated adoration. 



I am he that walks with the tender and grow- 
ing night, 

I call to the earth and sea half -held by the 
night. 

Press close bare-bosom'd night — press 
close magnetic nourishing night! 

Night of south winds — night of the large 
few stars! 

Still nodding night — mad naked summer 
night. 

Smile O voluptuous cool-breath'd earth! 
Earth of the slumbering and liquid trees! 
Earth of departed sunset — earth of the 

mountains misty- topt! 
Earth of the vitreous pour of the full moon 

just tinged with blue! 
Earth of shine and dark mottling the tide 

of the river! 

213 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

Earth of the limpid gray of clouds brighter 

and clearer for my sake! 
Far-swooping elbow'd earth — rich apple- 

blossom'd earth! 
Smile, for your lover comes. 

Prodigal, you have given me love — there- 
fore I to you give love! 
O unspeakable passionate love. 

Song of Myself. 



A NIGHT REMEMBRANCE 

August 25, q-io AM. — I sit by the pond, 
everything quiet, the broad polish'd sur- 
face spread before me — the blue of the 
heavens and the white clouds reflected from 
it — and flitting across, now and then, the 
reflection of some flying bird. Last night I 
was down here with a friend till after mid- 
night; everything a miracle of splendor — 
the glory of the stars, and the completely 
rounded moon — the passing clouds, sil- 
ver and luminous- tawny — now and then 
masses of vapory illuminated scud — and 
silently by my side my dear friend. The 
shades of the trees, and patches of moon- 
light on the grass — the softly blowing 
breeze, and just-palpable odor of the neigh- 
boring ripening corn — the indolent and 
spiritual night, inexpressibly rich, tender, 
21S 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

suggestive — something altogether to filter 
through one's soul, and nourish and feed 
and soothe the memory long afterwards. 



NIGHT ON THE PRAIRIES 

Night on the prairies, 

The supper is over, the fire on the ground 

burns low, 
The wearied emigrants sleep, wrapt in their 

blankets; 
I walk by myself — I stand and look at 

the stars, which I think now I never 

realized before. 

Now I absorb immortality and peace, 
I admire death and test propositions. 

How plenteous! how spiritual! how re- 
sume! 

The same old man and soul — the same old 
aspirations, and the same content. 

I was thinking the day most splendid till I 
saw what the not-day exhibited, 
217 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

I was thinking this globe enough till there 
sprang out so noiseless around me 
myriads of other globes. 

Now while the great thoughts of space and 
eternity fill me I will measure my- 
self by them, 

And now touch'd with the lives of other 
globes arrived as far along as those 
of the earth, 

Or waiting to arrive, or pass'd on farther 
than those of the earth, 

I henceforth no more ignore them than I 
ignore my own life, 

Or the lives of the earth arrived as far as 
mine, or waiting to arrive. 

I see now that life cannot exhibit all to 

me, as the day cannot, ' 

1 see that I am to wait for what will be 

exhibited by death. 



218 



NIGHT — AND CARLYLE DYING 

In the fine cold night, unusually clear, 
(February 5, J 8i,) as I walk'd some open 
grounds adjacent, the condition of Carlyle, 
and his approaching — perhaps even then 
actual — death, filled me with thoughts 
eluding statement, and curiously blending 
with the scene. The planet Venus, an hour 
high in the west, with all her volume and 
lustre recover'd, (she has been shorn and 
languid for nearly a year,) including an ad- 
ditional sentiment I never noticed before — 
not merely voluptuous, Paphian, steeping, 
fascinating — now with calm commanding 
seriousness and hauteur — the Milo Venus 
now. Upward to the zenith, Jupiter, Sat- 
urn, and the moon past her quarter, trail- 
ing in procession, with the Pleiades follow- 
ing, and the constellation Taurus, and red 
Aldebaran. Not a cloud in heaven. Orion 
219 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

strode through the southeast, with his 
glittering belt — and a trifle below hung 
the sun of the night, Sirius. Every star 
dilated, more vitreous, nearer than usual. 
Not as in some clear nights when the larger 
stars entirely outshine the rest. Every 
little star or cluster just as distinctly visible, 
and just as nigh. Berenice's hair showing 
every gem, and new ones. To the north- 
east and north the Sickle, the Goat and kids, 
Cassiopeia, Castor and Pollux, and the 
two Dippers. While through the whole of 
this silent indescribable show, inclosing 
and bathing my whole receptivity, ran the 
thought of Carlyle dying. (To soothe and 
spiritualize, and, as far as may be, solve 
the mysteries of death and genius, consider 
them under the stars at midnight.) 

And now that he has gone hence, can it 
be that Thomas Carlyle, soon to chemically 
dissolve in ashes and by winds, remains an 
identity still? In ways perhaps eluding all 
the statements, lore and speculations of 
220 



THE ROLLING EARTH 

ten thousand years — eluding all possible 
statements to mortal sense — does he yet 
exist, a definite, vital being, a spirit, an 
individual — perhaps now wafted in space 
among those stellar systems, which, sug- 
gestive and limitless as they are, merely 
edge more limitless, far more suggestive 
systems? I have no doubt of it. In silence, 
of a fine night, such questions are answer 'd 
to the soul, the best answers that can be 
given. 



TWILIGHT 

The soft voluptuous opiate shades, 
The sun just gone, the eager light dispelPd 
— (I too will soon be gone, dis- 
pelPd), 
A haze — nirwana — rest and night — 
oblivion. 



THE END 



Finally, the morality: "Virtue," said Marcus 
Aurelius, " what is it, only a living and enthusiastic 
sympathy with Nature ? ' ' Perhaps indeed the efforts 
of the true poets, founders, religions, literatures, all 
ages, have been, and ever will be, our time and times 
to come, essentially the same — to bring people back 
from their persistent strayings and sickly abstractions, 
to the costless average, divine, original concrete. 



CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS 
U . S . A 



MAR 16 1912 



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